


Resolutions

by PeniG



Series: Akashic Records [26]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Anathema's been very busy, Angels, Aziraphale the Guardian of Soho, BAMF Aziraphale, Bookshop, Demonic Contracts, Diplomacy, Established Relationship, Former students, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Imprisonment, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Other, Protective Aziraphale, Protective Crowley, Psychic damage, Tadfield, The good guys are winning throughout though, Threats of Violence, abusive workplaces, an ex-antichrist with residual powers that are still pretty good, angelic ableism, cw: gabriel, discussion of abuse, he'd really rather not be though, non-graphic injury, referenced human trafficking, some alcohol, spiritual damage, threat to a child, wrestling with angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: This is not intended as a standalone fic, but will serve to wrap up some thematic threads established during the course of the full series of The Akashic Records, as follows:1st, What About Aziraphale's Students?2nd, What About Hell generally and Dagon in Particular?3rd, What About Gabriel?4th, What About Sandalphon?And then we'll be done! I think.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub & Dagon
Series: Akashic Records [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1446628
Comments: 159
Kudos: 338





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> I had to fight my tendency to hyperspecificity in settings hard for this one! Since I've never set foot in London, I had to use websearches and hope for the best. Postman's Park appears to be my favorite type of park, a small one where people who work in offices go to breathe on their lunch hours, and it features a Victorian memorial to people who have given their lives to save others, which is...just...you know Aziraphale was into that. It also seems to have been used as a graveyard, based on the pics? 
> 
> As far as I know, "eclectic kosher" isn't a real food trend, but it ought to be, says the non-Jew.
> 
> For the kids in the audience: Aziraphale's daisy wheel printer requires special paper you can't get anymore, which comes in long continuous stacks with detachable strips on the side punched with holes at regular intervals. The paper is loaded around a tube called a carriage, and the holes match up to the bumps on a set of paired wheels at either end of the carriage. Printing is done by the daisy wheel, a disk with the necessary alphnumerics on it, usually in Courier 12p, which rotates and applies the characters by pressure on an inked ribbon, much like a typewriter. At the end of each line, the carriage returns to the left and rolls forward the width of one line, whereupon the paper is advanced upward by the bumps in the holes dragging it as the carriage rolls. This is a very noisy, very slow, but very reliable way to print, though the machine tends to jerk a bit and you'll have to realign the paper once in awhile. At the end of every job, you tear the paper off the printer, remove the side strips, and either tear the pages apart along the perforated lines, or read it in an accordion stack. 
> 
> No way is Aziraphale getting rid of one of those tough old workhorses before it falls apart. His probably has another fifty years in it.

(Via mundane European postal service, sometimes called Snail Mail)

_Dear Mr. Fell:_

_I have been delegated, in a purely unofficial capacity, to approach you on behalf of your old students to clear up confusion about your recent retirement. Although I would be happy to engage in correspondence with you, a personal meeting would go a long way toward putting such a correspondence on a realistic footing, if one can be arranged in a way that ensures everyone’s security._

_I am willing to come to England, but would request that you choose some reasonably neutral spot. Somewhere public, with lots of people around, would suit my purposes well. I do not expect to need to take up more than an hour or so of your valuable time._

_Please let me know location, date, and time and I will undertake to be there._

_I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the assistance you provided the last time we saw each other, which was essential to the successful conclusion of that business._

_Sincerely,_

_Hylochiel, Guardian of Lithuania_

\----  
 _Dear Hylochiel:_

_I would be delighted to see you, if you are satisfied that it can be arranged safely. My husband will be with me (this is **not** negotiable), so please feel free to bring a friend. I would enjoy catching up with any of my old students a great deal. Please be aware that we absolutely decline to meet Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, or Sandalphon, or any members of their immediate staff, for any reason whatsoever. The slightest hint of any of them in the vicinity will be taken as evidence of bad faith. _

_However, I have no reason to suspect you of bad faith, and therefore enclose two tickets to the symphony, in hopes that you will be able to meet us nearby and perhaps go to dinner. Even if the meeting doesn’t go well, at least we can all enjoy some music. The performance begins at 7:30, so we will look for you at the Aldersgate entrance to Postman’s Park at 6:00. The Park itself will be closed at dusk, but that need not inconvenience anyone._

_I have always regretted that we had no time to chat last time we met, and I look forward so much to seeing you and whatever friend you care to bring._

_Yours very truly_

_A.Z. Fell, Independent Guardian, Soho_

\---

“Have I mentioned what a horrible idea this is?” Crowley asked, as they paced the length of the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park, which had closed two hours before.

“Seventeen times since we left the flat, dearest. It begins to grow tedious, but if it makes you feel better, pray continue to say so whenever the need strikes.” Aziraphale swung their hands between them, smiling so sweetly Crowley’s heart almost burst with happiness and apprehension.

“At least we’ll die fabulous. That tailor of yours went all out. You reshape the whole world to look good around you, in that.”

“That’s the twentieth compliment you’ve given me in the same span of time, and somehow, it doesn’t grow tedious at all.”

They had dressed up for the occasion, each in an outfit commissioned by the other from the tailor in the narrow Soho shopfront near the bookshop, who had been delighted to be asked to dress Mr. Fell himself after years of altering used outfits, at his behest, to make the destitute look hireable. Crowley hadn’t ventured to mess with Aziraphale’s style significantly, but what had been cream was now slate blue, what had been brown and worn was now deep blue brocade, and what had been tartan...was still tartan, because some hills should be left unchallenged. The main thing was, his angel was beautiful in a way the whole world could see now; a colorful, not at all dictated-by-Heaven, way. In return, Aziraphale had left Crowley’s palette alone and changed his textures, wrapping him up in softness and sheen till he felt as if his angel was petting him by proxy with each movement. So if this turned out to be their last night out, they’d go out in style, together.

Too bad he was too busy scanning for threats to enjoy gazing at Aziraphale properly. They’d pulled their own auras in tight. No infernal auras lurked in the evening shadows, and the only celestial ones were the two near the Aldersgate entrance, as prescribed. Crowley nudged Aziraphale. “Right on time. That is Hylochiel, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale’s face lit up in confirmation. “Oh! And she’s brought Alaudiel, how lovely! I don’t believe I’ve seen her since the Flood. I don’t see anyone else from either lot here - do you?”

Crowley slowed the street down around them to be doubly sure. Traffic was relatively quiet at this hour in the City; no real crowds to hide in, by London standards. “No, angel. But we didn’t spot the kidnaping teams at the ice cream stand till it was too late, either. This is a _horrible_ idea and if things go south - ”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand and pulled him in for a kiss. “Then we will deal with that, and be grateful they’re after us and not Adam. But we’ll be all right! Remember, I _know_ them.”

“You _knew_ them. I knew Hylochiel, myself, a long time ago, but there’s been a lot of water under a lot of bridges, since then.”

“Yes, dearest, but we can’t hide in our little sanctuaries forever. And Hylochiel saw how you felt about me in Jerusalem, and never said a word about it.”

“That you know of.” He had a point, though. Much as Crowley might blame Hylochiel for getting Aziraphale transferred, the consequences would have been very different, for both of them, if she’d run her mouth on one particularly touchy subject. “All right, angel, if you’re set on this, let’s get on with it.” He released his grip on the nape of time’s neck.

Aziraphale simultaneously flooded the park with his radiance, waved, and called, in a clear and ringing voice: “Yoohoo! Hylochiel! Alaudiel! Over here!”

Crowley groaned to cover laughter ( _Yoohoo_?), all the humans in the area got a sudden bounce in their steps as the wave of angelic good will rolled over them, and the two angels turned toward his voice, drew together, and came in through the locked gate. Aziraphale stepped out to meet them, and Crowley perforce stepped out with him, scanning the sky, and the ground, and the buildings all around, finding nothing untoward.

Both angels presented female and wore similar shiny neutrals under fuzzy wraps, suitable for symphony-going, but otherwise contrasted in their corporations. Hylochiel, though tense enough to play a tune on, looked far more comfortable than she had been last time he’d seen her, tall and blonde and hourglass-shaped. The other looked short and round and very dark, with a magnificent mane of kinky hair, and quick bright eyes like a bird’s. Alaudiel took long strides and Hylochiel minced a bit, to move in lockstep. They wanted one thing between them, desperately: For Aziraphale to be innocent.

Interesting. But what did they mean by “innocent,” and what would they do if he didn’t meet their criteria? Crowley did another scan, but except for these four, it was all humans, everywhere.

They met up near the fountain, Crowley releasing Aziraphale’s hand so he could hold out one to each as he beamed at them. “How charming you both look! Crowley, this is Alaudiel - one of my very best students - and of course you remember Hylochiel. Alaudiel, this is my husband, Crowley.”

Crowley met Alaudiel’s eyes through the sunglasses for a flash of an instant as she looked from Aziraphale, to him; and then they flicked back to Aziraphale. “Oh,” she said, “It really _is_ you, isn’t it?” She threw her arms around him and burst into tears; whereupon Hylochiel did the same.

Aziraphale didn’t stagger physically under this assault, but his face showed that he was every bit as nonplused as Crowley was. “My dears, whatever is the matter?” He patted both their backs helplessly, eyes appealing to Crowley, who shrugged, once again failed to locate an ambush, and put his hand in the small of Aziraphale’s back, mounting guard over them all during their period of ridiculous vulnerability. Aziraphale produced a handkerchief apiece and made soothing noises. 

“I think this means they recognize your obvious innocence of all wrongdoing, angel. But whether it’s relief, or remorse because they’ve distracted us from a raid on Adam is more than I can see.”

Alaudiel shook her head violently, blowing her nose. Hylochiel scrubbed her face and gasped: “Nobody knows we’re here but a few other Guardians! And, and I made a deal with my adversary so he’d behave himself, but he doesn’t know what I’m doing or where I’m doing it.”

“And you’re certain you weren’t followed?”

“They wouldn’t have shown themselves, if they had any reason to believe they’d led anyone here,” said Aziraphale. “If they’re mistaken, and they were being used as unwitting bait for an ambush, we’d already be up against it.”

“Might still be someone watching.” So many windows overlooking this park...

“If so, let them watch! We’re not doing anything wrong. In any case, if they want to watch us, they can do so any time, through the Records.”

“No, they can’t.” Alaudiel’s voice was still gaspy, but she could use it now. “Liriel-and-Sabriel say that since the Records are for watching over humans and observing Heaven’s agents on earth, and you’re not an agent anymore, searches regarding you are no longer valid. They won’t run them.”

“So?” Crowley sneered. “They can search on you two.” Still, that was one anxiety off the table. If Heaven hadn’t already thought to search their dratted Records (the idea of which he’d always hated) to find out how the holy water/hellfire “immunity” had been accomplished, apparently it was too late now; and it was much too late for anything else to matter. “Though all they’ll see is you two crying over him like he returned from the dead.”

“From our point of view, he might as well have.” Hylochiel had control of her face again, her makeup miraculously unsmudged. “His whole platoon saw him refuse to fight, say something about what demons can do, and jump bodiless down to Earth. The official explanation is that he Fell voluntarily. That didn’t _sound_ like him at all, and and when Armageddon was called off and Gabriel blamed him it didn’t, didn’t seem to _us_ like such a terrible thing, but then Sandalphon said he’d tried to murder Gabriel with Hellfire and so many angels saw him leave, still flaming at the edges, and - you can’t imagine what it’s been like! But _now_ -“ She smiled shakily. “Muriel is such an idiot! How anybody could look at that aura and think for a _moment_ -“

“They’re not an idiot,” Alaudiel contradicted. “They’re inexperienced. Gabriel hand-picked them out of the admin staff for this, and they’re starstruck, not believing their own senses. But they _know_ something’s off, or they wouldn’t have let me see their report.”

“They were horribly out of their depth,” agreed Aziraphale. “I don’t know what Gabriel was thinking, sending a spy who’d never been on Earth before!”

“I do,” growled Crowley. “He was thinking, _Let’s send somebody expendable that’s well up on the party line and will swallow whatever I tell them._ I don’t know why you lot expect any different at this point. Are you ladies done with the waterworks? Because it’s cold here and we need to allow time for massive infodumps and eating and getting to the hall on time.”

“I’m all right,” said Hylochiel, though her mouth still quivered.

“I’m, I’ll manage.” Alaudiel sniffed, dabbed her eyes, and shook out the handkerchief, clean and dry again, to return to Aziraphale. “I haven’t let myself have a good cry in, oh, it must be almost a thousand years now! I’m overdue. But I’m good for now. Where are we going?”

Aziraphale’s good humor returned full force at this question. “If you don’t mind experimenting, and wouldn’t count it too much as my _turf_ , so to speak, a friend of mine recently started a small restaurant around the corner, and I haven’t tried it yet. They said it would be ‘eclectic kosher,’ whatever that means, but I trust them.”

“Then we will, too.” 

Crowley took care to claim one of Aziraphale’s hands before either of the other angels could cut him out, and they proceeded to the restaurant in a line of four, with Hylochiel mincing next to Aziraphale and Alaudiel striding next to Crowley. She looked up at him with a dimpled smirk. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Nope.” Her aspect wasn’t familiar, and her aura, though it rang a bell or two, could have been that of any of hundreds of adversaries he’d swatted out of his way, over the centuries, to convince Heaven to field the right angel against him again. 

“Jerusalem. Goats.”

“Goats? Used to do a lot with goats, in those days. Wonderful creatures - climb anything, chew up anything, care for _nobody._ That’s one of the downsides of Britain - not enough goats. Got to use rats, pigeons, and gulls for everything. Mind you, our place in the country, the neighbors keep geese, and we’re coming to understand each other, expect we can - oh!” His brain, working through his memories as his mouth ran on, pulled out the right one at last. “After they sent Aziraphale off exorcizing bears, there were two of you? You and some wanker with a stick up his bum, always looking to smite me. Caught _you_ in the goat stampede, framed _him_ for stealing them, carried off _both_ flaming swords. I remember!” He barked a laugh. “Haven’t thought of that in ages!”

“You took their swords? _Crowley!_ ” Aziraphale sounded scandalized, in the way that meant he was laughing inside.

“He brought mine back,” Alaudiel assured him. “Stuck inside a log with only the hilt showing, but still. We never found Dubrael’s.”

“If Dubrael wanted his sword back he should’ve been a better sport,” said Crowley. “I buried it under one of the gates - Jaffa? Damascus? Don’t remember. Think I left him clues, but he was too full of himself to play treasure hunt. You at least could take a joke. Anyway, I _had_ to take them. He raged so I was afraid he’d smite one of those poor guards herding him before the King to answer for goat stealing. That wouldn’t have been any fun!”

“I’m sure he forced your hand, entirely,” said Aziraphale. “No one could possibly blame _you.”_

Crowley found himself grinning. “You hear that? That’s sarcasm. _I_ taught him that. He couldn’t detect the stuff at all, when I met him. Thought I was being kind.”

“You _were_ , dearest! The sarcasm was for Hell’s benefit, and the kindness for mine.”

At the restaurant, the hostess was revealed as having Soho food service experience when she addressed Aziraphale as “Mr. Fell” in glad tones, showed them to the best available table, responded to his sincere inquiries about the progress of her studies with sincere but succinct details, and stopped on the way back to her station to brief the relevant waiter and server. “I’m afraid we’d have to go quite a way out of London, to get anything truly resembling _neutral ground_ in this regard,” said Aziraphale apologetically. “I eat out rather a lot, and food service people tend to remember me.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what we meant at all,” Hylochiel assured him, over the menu. “We just - oh, it’s hard to explain. We weren’t _sure_ , you see. You might well have traps among your wards or something, in the heart of your territory. But we, well, you have been a Guardian for longer than anybody, and even if your service wasn’t, wasn’t quite as exemplary as Gabriel always told us, we _knew_ you wouldn’t do anything violent in a crowd, and that you’d know _we_ wouldn’t, either. It was practically the only thing we could be sure of. Till we saw you.”

“Gabriel told you my service was exemplary?” Aziraphale sounded so peculiar Crowley took his hand, flicking his eyes around the dining room, ceiling, and floor on reflex.

“All the time! Until recent events you were the gold standard. Six thousand years, no discorporations, meeting every single Guardianing challenge first and best, the only one who could, um, handle the, um, the Serpent -“ She flushed. “A lot of, well, angels who didn’t know you, they found it a bit irritating. And, and knowing - what I did - about the Serpent - I’m afraid I almost blurted out, when I was feeling particularly, when I was having demon problems and you were, um, - not that I didn’t think he was troublesome, in his own way, or that, that I didn’t remember how distressed you were about the situation -“ The flush deepened under Aziraphale’s flabbergasted gaze. “I always reminded myself it was a, a different set of problems and you really were, _are_ , in a class of your own, so I never told. About him. Not till Alaudiel told us about Muriel’s report. And then only other Guardians.” She faltered to a stop.

Crowley nudged Aziraphale’s shoulder with his own. “Breathe, angel,” he said. “We don’t have time to unpack all that right now. You know how long it takes you to sort through a new menu.”

Aziraphale breathed in, and out, and released Hylochiel from her social panic with a kind smile. “Goodness, yes! I’m afraid I’m not the most decisive person in any room. Particularly when it comes to menus. Which is probably why my performance reviews used to contain lots of phrases like ‘lose the gut’ and ‘stop dithering.’ But none of that matters any more, does it? Oh, look, the pareve menu has sushi!”

So that was another socially awkward moment behind them, with how many ahead? Crowley realized, studying the wine list, that if they were to get through this evening without wrecking anybody, somebody with no emotional chestnuts in the fire had to take charge. All three angels were on the edge of meltdown, every conversation was a potential minefield, and if Alaudiel and Hylochiel had come with any kind of cohesive agenda, they had clearly lost it along the way. Based on the desires displayed, they meant no harm, but that didn’t make them incapable of tearing his angel to shreds by accident. As for Aziraphale, though he put up a good front about his alienation from Heaven on most days, these two were taking him on his weak flank.

Thank goodness for humans! The restaurant owner, on learning that Mr. Fell was in the house, came out and forced everybody to play at mundanity for several minutes. The result was a greatly expedited menu selection process, as the restaurant human had apparently fantasized about Mr. Fell’s first visit, and knew exactly which dishes they wanted to put forward for his initial impression. This relieved both tension and suspense, put Aziraphale squarely back into his comfort zone, and created the space Crowley needed to move in.

“All right,” he said, when the menus were cleared away, “you came here wanting to know whether Aziraphale was Fallen. Now you know, and you both want to ask him a million other questions. So _my_ question is, _Why the hell should he answer any?_ ”

“Dearest, please!”

“Somebody’s got to set boundaries, and we all know it won’t be _you_. I don’t know why you’re willing to give them the time of day, after the way Heaven’s treated you, but since you are, they need to understand up front, you owe them _nothing_.”

“It’s not as if they’re Archangels! They’ve never hurt me.”

“Bollocks.” He pointed at Hylochiel and glared at her through the sunglasses, daring her to take offense at the truth. “That one _blinded_ you last time you met her.”

“Not on purpose,” said Aziraphale, as Hylochiel’s mouth dropped open and her face paled under the makeup. “It was a hazard of the work we were doing. I accepted the risks.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” wailed Hylochiel. “ _That’s_ what was wrong with your eyes! No _wonder_ you were angry. Did they take long to heal?”

“Three months,” said Crowley, to watch her squirm; at the same time that Aziraphale said: “But I _wasn’t_ angry, my dear! I’ll admit I was cross that Sandalphon took me home before I could tell you how proud I was of you for how you handled that situation. But I’m afraid being cross at Sandalphon is part of my default state of being. I’ve long given up fighting it.”

“Pr-proud of me?” Hylochiel’s voice went soft and breathless. 

“A bit self-aggrandizing of me, I suppose. After all, you weren’t my student long. Still, I don’t think many angels would have handled a situation so desperate nearly as neatly and effectively, and a teacher may be excused some proprietary pride, I think. Who told you I was angry?”

“C’mon, you _know_ who told her that,” said Crowley, watching Alaudiel's eyes narrowing and then widening. “Sandalphon did.”

“That’s why I never went to see you in the infirmary.” Hylochiel clasped her hands together like a supplicant. “I was afraid you’d, you wouldn’t be glad to see me. That, and I was so tired, and Gabriel right away told me to head up the task force on warding the nuclear arsenals against demonic incursions.”

“I wish very much you _had_ come to me in the infirmary, my dear. Because then you would have found out, sixty years ago, that I was never there. Sandalphon was livid that I wouldn’t let myself discorporate, and took me straight home so I’d have plenty of time to ponder my sins while I recovered. But again, that’s been Sandalphon’s default mode since at least Sodom and Gommorrah.”

“But - why would -?”

“Don’t tell us you didn’t know Gabriel wanted him discorporated all this time,” said Crowley, as Alaudiel’s mouth thinned and her brows crinkled; as Hylochiel sagged and wrung her hands. “What did you _think_ that damn betting pool was about?”

“It wasn’t good for _your_ morale, was it?” Alaudiel leaned back, making room for revelations in the space between them. “Not even when most of your students punted on you not discorporating till the end of the world. Because all _that_ did was hold us back from helping you if you got into danger, so as not to cheat on the pool. We really _did_ believe you’d always save yourself, though. And you did, so -”

“And even if you hadn’t, well, we, we wanted you to get your wings back,” said Hylochiel. “We didn’t mean any harm. Discorporating was, was so routine for us -“

“You knew about the deal with Michael, then?” Crowley pressed.

“We were never officially told, but - it was an open secret. Among your students. Some of, some of the Host were, um, held it over our heads that our favorite teacher let the Serpent in - and they wouldn’t listen to us about how it wasn’t your fault - and it seemed so _unfair_ , that Michael’d crippled you.”

“But I’ve _never_ been crippled, my dear.” Aziraphale managed to sound soft and stern at the same time, as if encouraging a human to examine their assumptions. “Lacking wings is occasionally an inconvenience, but none of my charges have usable wings, either. Even Crowley doesn’t - Sandalphon pinioned him during the War. The injury was painful in the beginning, but it healed long ago, and while I’m on Earth, where I’ve _always_ wanted to be, lack of wings is not disabling. I’ve made myself clear about this any number of times. Since the installation of permanent ladders, I don’t even need assistance going to Heaven anymore.”

“Then why didn’t you come more often?” Hylochiel asked, and what could have been an angry demand sounded more like a plea. “You never visited anyone.”

“I never knew where anyone _was_. Not where you were assigned, not when you were upstairs. No one told me these things. Gabriel’s staff always hustled me straight from the lobby to the offices - where there’s nothing whatever to induce me to stay - and if I asked to visit the Records or whether anyone else was reporting in, there was always some reason for me to return straight home. I gave up asking, in time.”

“Why didn’t any of _you_ visit _him_ , if you wanted to see him?” Crowley demanded. “He’s been official Guardian here continuously for over two hundred years, and was centered in Europe generally for a lot longer than that. He’s not hard to track down if he’s not trying to hide the radiance, which he hardly ever does. You lot with wings could pop in on him any time. Or _write_ to him, at least. Why the heaven didn’t you?”

“Gabriel said you didn’t like interruptions.” Hylochiel, in a small voice, addressed Aziraphale as if he were the one who asked. “And - I for one could easily imagine why. The more angels knew, saw, how it was, the harder it would be to keep the secret from Hell, and the more dangerous it would be for Crowley. I didn’t understand _why_ that mattered to you, but you made it clear in Jerusalem that it _did_. So when Gabriel told us to clear it with him before contacting you, I assumed you'd asked him to just, just didn’t try.”

“Seminars,” said Alaudiel. “Why didn’t you ever come to any of the Guardian Seminars?”

“There were Guardian Seminars?” Crowley could tell by Aziraphale’s tone that this was news to him. “What a capital idea! If I had known such things existed I would have attended if I could. Are they held often?”

“Once every hundred years or so.” Alaudiel did not sound surprised. “We requested you as a speaker, several times. Uriel always said you declined due to press of work.”

“I see,” said Aziraphale, turning to Crowley. “I for one feel very stupid, don’t you? Though to be fair I refused to admit what Gabriel was doing right up to the bitter end.”

“I should have thought of it,” Crowley admitted. “I assumed from the start that you were the only decent angel in existence, and was just as glad to have you all to myself; but I still should’ve thought of it. It’s not like I’m a stranger to how abuse works.” 

“Isolation,” said Alaudiel, in the voice of one assembling all the building blocks of revelation. “Isolating - all of us, really. Even at the Seminars, Hy, think about it! How hard it was to get to all the panels and how little time there ever was for discussion, how territories got shuffled afterward - and when we submitted ideas for new panels, did anyone you know _ever_ get their idea used? I know none of mine did. Rubbing our noses in Aziraphale’s perfections while criticizing him to his face. Keeping us busy, giving confusing instructions, making us compete for the miracle budget, never quite admitting when we were doing well or when Head Office had been remiss, always finding fault.” Her eyes flashed, literally, and Crowley felt a surge of electricity in the air. “Gabriel’s been gaslighting all of us! Aziraphale especially, but everybody in Earthly Affairs to one degree or another. Maybe some angels outside it, too - how else did he get a leg up on Michael?”

Hylochiel made no attempt to dispute the conclusion, hunching in on herself and gazing at Aziraphale as if he were her only hope. “But - but why -?”

“I’m sure you’ve dealt with enough abusers over the millennia to answer that question as well as anyone else here.” Aziraphale patted her hand. “It certainly wasn’t _your_ fault.”

Hylochiel shook her head. “No, not that! Once you get all the information that becomes stunningly obvious. But _why hasn’t he Fallen?”_

“Maybe because nobody’s pushed him yet,” Crowley suggested. “Time somebody did, but it’s no business of mine. Unless he gets in our faces. He ever comes _near_ Aziraphale again he’ll regret it.”

Alaudiel and Hylochiel looked at each other, then back at Aziraphale. “ _You_ could push him,” Hylochiel said. “We can call a meeting of the Guardians - you could talk to them -“

“They’d listen to you - Crowley can come, too, we’d guard you, _all_ your students would - we’d keep you safe.”

 _Over my dead body, angel!_ Crowley braced himself to wrestle with Aziraphale’s stubborn sense of duty, his anxiety to do the right thing for everyone _except_ himself, his complete disregard of personal costs, his compassion for all these other damn angels who hadn’t even suffered as much as he had, who weren’t worth one hair of his head; and could already feel himself losing.

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, my dears! That won’t do at all!”

“But - they _will_ listen to you!”

“Some of them, perhaps. Others will only hear a rogue angel fomenting a new rebellion. You are both much, much better equipped than I am to do whatever is necessary. I don’t even know who or what Earthly Affairs answers to anymore, and I have no political connections. No, no, there’s nothing to be gained by my making any kind of complaint at this point. But even if it _would_ work, it’s _not my job!_ Don’t you understand what we’ve done here? I’m not of Heaven any more and Crowley’s not of Hell.” He shifted, and Crowley, astounded and delighted, shifted to meet him, arms going around each other’s waists. “We’re _of Earth_ , now. Not that I don’t care what’s happening, or that I have no sympathy for you. But I have other responsibilities, and nothing obliges me to set them aside to deal with Gabriel again. Not when you, and his other victims, are capable of dealing with him for yourselves. Which you _are!_ ”

“I’m, not sure we are,” said Hylochiel.

“Bollocks,” said Crowley. “There’s hundreds of you Guardians.”

“It’s not that simple!”

“I know,” said Aziraphale. “It never is. We’ve all dealt with the abused before now. Nothing about this is different, just because the abused this time are ourselves.”

“You wouldn’t ask a human who’d broken free to go back into their abuser’s orbit to rescue someone else,” said Crowley. “You’d applaud their courage if they did it, but you’d never _ask_ it of them. Would you? So don’t ask Aziraphale to do it. He did his bit when he proved breaking free could be _done_.”

“But we can’t just - “ Hylochiel made a helpless, all-inclusive gesture, reminiscent of jumping, with her hands.

“Why not? Not to recruit for Earth, but, as Guardians, you’ve probably got a lot invested down here. Why can’t you pull up stakes and go freelance?”

“Or you can try taking the complaint upstairs,” Aziraphale suggested. “I can’t recommend the Metatron, but Gabriel must answer to somebody - cherubim, seraphim, _someone!_ You must have a lot of options I’m not even aware of. But as for me, I’ve dealt with him for six thousand years and I’m _done_. I don’t have to _think_ about him, I don’t have to _talk_ about him, I don’t have to _see_ him, I don’t have to _confront_ him. And for tonight, neither do either of _you_. Tonight we’re all going to talk about other things, and have a lovely dinner, and listen to beautiful music, and afterward maybe we’ll go back to the bookshop and open up a bottle or two, and we’ll all have a wonderful time!”

As if to back him in this admirable decision, the food arrived, and other issues were buried under plates of sushi, schwarma, kugelis, tamales, falafel, doro wat, spinach lasagna, and other more or less surprising dishes over which Aziraphale exclaimed; as well as a bottle of house red that made all of them nostalgic for Jerusalem. Alaudiel and Crowley between them told the entire story of the goats and the flaming swords, which kept getting funnier the more they reminded each other of details; and then Crowley found himself coaxed into telling a few other tales of outwiling his would-be thwarters, giving Aziraphale time to enjoy his food without having to interrupt himself with talking.

They were working on dessert when Hylochiel, composure regained, asked: “So how long, exactly, have you two been married?”

“Officially?” Aziraphale asked, his fork vacillating between his own torte and Crowley’s apple cake. “We’re not. Unfortunately, common law marriage isn’t a thing in Britain. That hardly matters to us, though, as we’re not going to divorce or die intestate or have children, so we may as well act as if we had legal status.”

“He’s trying to discorporate me,” complained Crowley complacently, as the fork came down on the apple cake. “Six thousand years, he’s been all _oh, we’re not friends, we don’t know each other,_ and the best excuse for a pet name I ever got was my own particular emphasis on that _my dear_ he uses on everybody, but ever since August it’s _husband_ this and _dearest_ that, and he sits back and smirks while I have an aneurysm. He called me _sweetheart_ last week and I nearly exploded.”

“Well, but - I meant _married._ At the spiritual level,” said Hylochiel. “I suppose I’m asking - when did you make the transition from what you were in Jerusalem, to what you are now?”

“Oh, as for that.” Aziraphale came up for air. “Since ‘41.” 

“Wait, you too?” said Crowley. “That far back?”

“You said yourself, you saw the Difference.” Aziraphale loaded his fork with torte, looking down at it with anticipation. “You even walked - well, hopped - down the aisle to me.”

“ _Oh_! You mean _19_ 41! Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Which ‘41 did you _think_ I meant?” The torte hovered. “Paris was 1793 and mutually agreed to be a one-off.”

“I meant _41._ Rome. Bathhouses, oysters, you teaching me to read - I couldn’t pin it down to one moment, but somewhere in there I realized I was married to you whether you were married to me or not. It was just - there. Part of me. Pinioned, Fallen, colorblind, redheaded, shapeshifting, all the genders, snake eyes, devilish clever, committed to Aziraphale, there you are, that’s what a Crowley is.”

Aziraphale, who should have been eating during this speech, dropped his fork, staring at him, with his mouth open and his eyes brighter and rounder than usual. “ _Oh_ ,” he said, in a small wondering voice, flushed all over with what Crowley took on faith to be a pretty shade of pink, for those who could see that color, but he had himself a Smile and was satisfied.

Mostly. “What? You can _see_ this stuff. How can it possibly surprise you that I reached that point first?”

“Oh, dearest,” breathed Aziraphale. “I don’t know why I’m surprised that you were nineteen hundred patient years ahead of me. But every now and again the, the reality of you stops me in my tracks! I can’t possibly live up to this! It’s too much.”

Crowley felt his face heat up, and heard what he supposed were Alaudiel and Hylochiel making soft feminine cooey noises, but as for looking anywhere aside from the glory of Aziraphale’s face, all bent upon him with two desserts right there, that was more than he could be expected to manage. “I’ll, I’ll try to dial it back, then.”

“Don’t you dare!” 

Aziraphale kissed him, in front of God and angels and everybody, and Crowley was astonishingly happy; but somebody had to be the sensible one and it seemed to be his turn tonight, so when he got his mouth back, eventually, he used it to say, very sensibly indeed: “I am astonishingly happy right now, but also, you have two desserts to get through, and the overture starts at 7:30, and we still have to get to the hall.”

“Oh, all right,” said Aziraphale, as one making a great concession. “It would be awfully rude to ignore such scrumptious desserts, wouldn’t it?”

Thanks to Crowley’s forethought in parking the Bentley in a convenient illegal location, Aziraphale got to finish his desserts, and they still arrived at the symphony in plenty of time for the overture. The little party sat all together in the the middle of the row where the acoustics worked best, no Heavenly accusers swooped down from ambush, and Gabriel was not mentioned again, a situation Crowley hoped he could maintain for the rest of their shared existence.

A chilly rain was falling when they emerged, so Crowley ran off to get the Bentley and brought it round to the door, where he found Aziraphale had persuaded Hylochiel and Alaudiel to do exactly what they wanted to do and come to see the bookshop. The best of the collection was safely squirreled away in the cottage, these days, but Aziraphale still had plenty to show off to them, explaining some of the more interesting features and evolutions of the place without actually getting into the details of the wards and workings, while Crowley selected a suitable bottle or two, and then he got to sprawl on the couch with his feet in Aziraphale’s lap while the other angels sat in the armchairs. 

From this point, Crowley’s part was mostly to listen and laugh and occasionally prompt Aziraphale’s memory as the angels exchanged Guardian stories. Aziraphale was sparkly and relaxed and wiggly, talking freely with his hands. In some ways it was even better than having Aziraphale all to himself, to see him like this among those who understood his work and had a true sense of his worth.

In some ways.

Hylochiel’s present body wasn’t as much of a lightweight as the one she’d had in Jerusalem, but she was still the first to need to sober up, and then they could all feel the atmosphere of winding down for the night set in. “I know you’re right, and we shouldn’t ask you to fight our battle for us,” she said, “but - everything is so much clearer, with you, than it is back in Heaven. If we could arrange for you to talk to some other Guardians - the ones who don’t realize how bad it is -“

“Of course I’d be happy to receive more visitors, my dear,” said Aziraphale, whereat Crowley draped himself possessively over the new waistcoat. “By prior arrangement, of course.”

“Nope,” said Crowley. “Not if they’re going to talk about That! You were right the first time, angel! No talking, no seeing, no thinking about That! It’s past time for your revenge on that wanker, and we all know what the best revenge is! Right?”

“Living well, yes, dearest.” Aziraphale smiled benignly, kissed his nose, and lifted him off. “If you’d let me finish, I was about to say the same thing.”

Crowley snorted, and twisted himself right back onto the waistcoat. “Riiiiight.”

“Truly! But I have been turning some things over in my mind, and I don’t have to put myself through anything to be helpful. It seems to me that one of the things that’s been going wrong upstairs is, that angels aren’t using their available resources to best effect.” He picked Crowley up bodily, rose to his feet, and set him at the other end of the couch. “So let’s make a start at correcting that.”

“What resources?” Alaudiel asked, squinting into her empty glass as if to be sure she hadn’t overlooked some liquid.

“The Akashic Records, my dear!” Aziraphale moved a few stacks of paper and dusted off his computersaurus with a wave of his hand. “You recall how useful the recording of the Temptation of Eve was in understanding what had happened in Eden. A few well-chosen examples of abusive behavior in Archangels should be highly clarifying, for experienced Guardians, in convincing them that action must be taken. And if my or Crowley’s probity is an issue, the Records can address that, too. These are the sorts of things the Records are _for_ , and yet no one seems to be using them that way, that I can tell.” The computersaurus beeped, blinked, and hummed as it booted up.

“But Liriel-and-Sabriel won’t let us do searches about you.”

“There’s more than one way to search.” Aziraphale did not so much sit in the chair in front of the keyboard, as arrange himself there, in what Crowley recognized as old-fashioned typewriter posture, back straight, elbows in. A blinking cursor appeared in the upper left corner of the screen, and his fingers started rattling off DOS prompts, independent of his gaze or conversation. “No doubt the whole system is exponentially more complex than it was when I was working on it, but if you make sure to get Liriel or Sabriel to assist you, rather than anyone newer, I’m sure they can make sense of my old-fashioned terms and provide you with exactly what you need. What I’m about to give you should serve to get you started, and once you understand the principles, you’ll be able to find anything you need.”

“There aren’t any newer angels in the Records,” said Hylochiel. “It’s only Liriel-and-Sabriel. And I don’t...really like the idea of asking them for special help. They’re, um -“

“They’re _terrifying,_ ” said Alaudiel, with tipsy frankness. “I heard they’re the only ones God still speaks to. They use their true forms for everyday, even though none of the other offices are set up for that, so they never leave the Hall. Nobody can tell one from the other anymore.”

“Whenever I go there, I feel less like I’m interacting with them, and more like I’m interacting directly with the Records,” said Hylochiel. “It’s creepy. Like they’re Recording me, in all tracks, including interior monolog.”

“Nonsense! There was never a track for interior monolog. That would be much too invasive.” The monitor filled with rows and columns of what looked to Crowley like gibberish; but then he’d never gotten really gotten the hang of screens full of type. “They were working hard on the ethics of search engines when I was drafted into the Host.”

“Tell them Aziraphale sent you, when you do this search,” said Crowley helpfully. “They owe him one. Tell ‘em that story, angel.”

Aziraphale’s hands remained stationary as his fingers darted about the keyboard and new lines and columns appeared on the screen. “It’s hardly a _story._ You’ll remember that, after the War, when God refused to make new angels to replace the losses, Michael went around to all the departments to rebuild her numbers. She insisted she needed a third of the angels from each, minimum. Liriel, Sabriel, and I were the entire Records department at that time, and Liriel and Sabriel - well, you’ve seen it yourselves, they’re literally soulmates. The only true ones I’ve ever seen. And I’d heard that Michael was being particularly ruthless in her selections. The only way to take a third of the department without severing them from one another was to take _me_ , so rather than risk Michael’s process I volunteered. Leaving them permanently shorthanded, apparently, but we had no way to know that at the time. Here we go.” He hit a key with a decisive air, and the daisy wheel printer under the sales counter in the next room started chattering.

Hylochiel came to look over his shoulder. “What _is_ all this?”

“Search terms. For multiple sets of data, but I put them all in the same file because I already had it formatted, and I admit I’m rather hoping someone will take the time to browse the first set. Here, this is what you’ll primarily need - under Bad Angels.”

Crowley felt a bit sick, and sobered up some more. “You didn’t -“

“It’s all right, dearest, I didn’t have to relive anything to do this. It struck me as possible, in the wake of our so-called trials, that next time around I might need to mount a defense at some point, a real one, I mean, and I also thought it best to have a counterattack prepared, with hard evidence the judging body could evaluate for themselves. So there’s a third set of parameters for our part in Armageddon, if that’s useful to you. You see - this term here - that’s geographical coordinate, and this term is date - that combination will net you the most objective view of what happened, with as little ambiguity as possible, and should get around the restriction against searching on me. The ones I’ve highlighted in yellow will specifically show a pattern of abusive behavior in Earthly Affairs, directed by Gabriel. They will incidentally also show a pattern of, ahem, selective truthtelling in me, but at this point that hardly matters.”

Hylochiel bent over him to point at the screen. “What’s the first set of data? It’s huge.”

“Oh, that’s, um, that’s my case for, that’s Crowley.”

Crowley sat upright and swung his feet down to the floor. “No. Angel? What’re you doing, giving them spy data on me? Erase it!”

“I put them together to preserve you, dearest! In case Heaven won the final war and I needed to argue for keeping you alive.”

“All right, I’ll allow that. Don’t reckon you’d’ve been too fond of Dagon getting your bookshop and me getting you as a quote-unquote plaything, either - “

_“What!?”_

“But we don’t _need_ backup plans anymore! Wipe all that!”

“It’s already printing! Anyway, any random selection from that list should reassure anybody who’s still doubtful about my trustworthiness based on my association with you.” Aziraphale smirked up at Hylochiel. “I’ve highlighted the ones that I was sure would be convincing regardless of who I made the pitch to, if you’re curious. You’ll find he’s dazzling.”

“Is 1941 in there?” Alaudiel asked, with far more perky interest than Crowley liked. “The aisle hopping?”

“No, no, _no, no, nobody_ needs to see that kind of thing!”

“Oh, I know _somebody_ who definitely needs to see that kind of thing, and I don’t even know what it _is_!” Hylochiel looked positively gleeful. 

Crowley groaned and dashed for the printer, but Alaudiel tripped him and Hylochiel beat him to the front room, where broad, green-and-white striped paper inched along covered with nonsense alphanumerics. Some of them, against all possibility in a daisy wheel printer, were highlighted; but then Aziraphale always could get his computer equipment to go the extra mile for him. Hylochiel blocked him from ripping out the pages. “It’s not that I want to spy on you,” she said. “Only some of the Guardians are being very hardline about demons being unable to love and Aziraphale being your hapless dupe. They’ll insist that you’re the one abusing him.”

“That I’m _what?_ ”

“I don’t think you realize how _peculiar_ this all looks, in the context of Heaven’s party line that we’ve all been toeing for millennia.” Hylochiel, taller than him in high-heeled pumps, loomed over him. “Even I thought, when I first saw you with him back in Jerusalem, that I _must_ be seeing something corrupt, just because a demon was feeling it. I almost reported on it, because I was afraid of where you might lead him. If I had trusted his judgement a tiny bit less, I _would_ have; but then longer I went without saying anything the more impossible it was to speak up.”

“Well, thank goodness for that,” snarled Crowley; with less heat than he might have, remembering with sudden sharp vividness the raw possessive desire to keep Aziraphale all to himself, to blame him for not being on the same page, even at times to force him somehow onto that page, that had occasionally flared inside him in the old days. Long gone now, all of that, starved out by his own choices. “But this is personal, dammit! _Aziraphale!_ ”

“I’m sorry, dearest. I didn’t realize it would upset you so much, to have others besides me see you as you are.” Aziraphale’s arms wrapped around him from behind. “I _promise_ , I didn’t use the truly personal things. Bastille, yes, but _no_ boat - _I_ don’t want anybody seeing _that_ , either! The walnut. Your plan to raise the antichrist to spare the world. _That_ sort of thing.”

 _“None_ of it’s anybody’s business!”

“No, but - you don’t have to fear what Hell will do if they find out you’ve been nicer than they like, anymore. And I hate to think of - it’s so easy to imagine, the things they’re saying about you in Heaven. That you _seduced_ me or I _tamed_ you, as if you’re some kind of lesser life form that either dragged me down or got raised up yourself -“ He appealed to Hylochiel.

Hylochiel nodded. “The party line is, he dragged you down.”

“I don’t care what they think of me!” Crowley snapped. “They can all go soak their heads! I don’t want you making excuses for me to them. We have nothing to prove to anybody.”

“No, we don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to brag about how brilliant and wonderful my husband is.” Aziraphale’s eyelashes fluttered and oh, bugger, there it was, the Look -

“ _Gchk_.” Crowley felt his brain shorting out, and he threw his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right, fine, whatever, they’ll get bored of it before they’ve gone through a quarter of those lines. _But._ You have to give them the search terms to see the time you banished Dagon.”

“The time he _what?_ ” Alaudiel asked, watching all this from the door to the back room.

“That’s one I want to see myself,” said Crowley. “It happened while I was asleep, or I’d’ve had something to say about it. Dagon had gotten suspicious of us and came in to take a look at him. He trapped her here, convinced her she was barking up the wrong tree, _tried to sell her a book,_ and sent her _packing._ And she never retaliated! His supreme moment of badass and I _missed_ it! But _you_ don’t have to.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Oh, honestly!”

Alaudiel and Hylochiel, however, looked suitably impressed. “You banished a _Prince of Hell?_ Why did we never hear of this?” Hylochiel demanded. “That should’ve been all over Heaven!”

“She would have retaliated if I’d reported it,” said Aziraphale. “He’s talking this up much more than it deserves.”

“I’m really not,” Crowley assured them all. The printer kept on chattering. “Anyway, that’s my condition. You cut out everything about me in this printout, _or_ you add in the terms for them to see you do that. Or -“ He raised his hand, fingers poised to snap. “I burn the whole printout and fry your computer. It’s past time you got a new one anyway. These two can figure out how to do their own searches.”

“I no more need a new computer than you need a new car,” grumped Aziraphale. “But all right, if that’ll satisfy you, I’ll handwrite those terms on there. They’ve already got the bookshop coordinates, anyhow, it’s only a matter of adding date and time. But if word gets back to Dagon and she comes to tear Soho apart, I’m holding you responsible!”

So when Hylochiel and Alaudiel twitched their wings in the alley behind the shop and vanished back to Heaven, they took the printout, duly annotated, with them. Aziraphale locked the door behind them, setting the top layer of wards, and leaned against Crowley. “Oof! That was more intense than I expected! Still, it was so lovely to see them! And I’m glad you liked them.”

“Eh, they’re all right.” Crowley braced his feet to bear Aziraphale’s weight and rested his chin on the top of his head, feeling a bit wrung out. “Do you want to drive back to the cottage tonight, or go to the flat, or stay here?”

“It’s been awhile since we just sat back here. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit.”

So back to the couch they went, with the decanter and no sunglasses this time, and made themselves cozy in silence. London's three AM quiet was a different quality of low-level noise than they’d begun to grow accustomed to at the same hour at the cottage, but it was still familiar, and Crowley could sit a long time here, in luxurious enjoyment of the complete absence of flame, ash, broken glass, and despair; of the solid presence of angel, old furniture, and books. He felt contentment and satisfaction radiating off of Aziraphale, and determined to leave both alone, to enjoy the feel of blue brocade waistcoat under his cheek and of soft strong arm tight around his back and sides, to disturb none of it with the twitchy thought in the back of his head. He closed his eyes, hearing Aziraphale humming the last movement from the symphony, almost silently, a deep vibration in his chest, and thought of asking him to sing part of it, the cellos perhaps. He opened his mouth to do so.

“You should have been having that all along,” he said. “Visits from other angels. Ones that, that would treat you right.”

“It’s all water under the bridge, dearest. Don’t think about it.”

“You wouldn’t need me. If they had visited. Written. Kept you company.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is, though. I’d need you the same, because I never met a demon that I could talk to, and I gave up - I almost gave up - humans go by so fast. But you. If your boss hadn’t wanted to isolate you, if you hadn’t been gaslighted and controlled, if you’d been allowed to have friends in your damn peer group -“

Aziraphale put down his glass and covered Crowley’s mouth with the freed hand. “Shh. They’re _not_ my peer group. _You_ are. They _look up_ to me, of all the ridiculous things anybody could do! Yes, they’ve spent a fair amount of time on Earth, but they go back and forth to Heaven, they change bodies every few centuries, they have wings, they - they understand _some_ things, but not _everything_. Only _you_ do that. Only _you_ shared this strange beautiful terrible Earth with me for six thousand years. Only _you_ know and love my worst faults as much as my best virtues. You’re awe-inspiring and dazzling and exasperating and comfortable and _essential_. So stop tormenting yourself and let yourself enjoy what we worked so long and hard to get. All right, sweetheart?”

Crowley forked his tongue and licked the locus of power in the palm over his mouth, felt his husband shiver in response. “All right,” he said.

The hand released him and reached for the drink again. Crowley laid his own hand atop the hand resting on his belt buckle. “We should have rings. So people know we’re married even before one of us says _my husband._ ”

“You’re right. Do you want a ceremony, too?”

“Nah. Too much fuss to make, over an established fact. Rings would just - complete the look, you know? Do you know any jewelers? Personally, I mean? I’ve met quite a few in the tempting line, but the things we buy from the folks that know The Rules about Mr. Fell, they’ve got a bit extra, don’t they?”

“They do, now you mention it. I’m not sure I know anyone who can make wedding rings, but let me think a bit.”

“No hurry.” Crowley closed his eyes, and let himself feel happy, and safe, and husbanded.


	2. Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beelzebub and Dagon, dealing with a confused, panicked, and rebellious Hell, decide the route to reasserting dominance lies through Mr. Fell's bookshop, bearing bait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dagon doesn't see humans as people; therefore, she's using neutral pronouns for all of them. 
> 
> Though the fandom seems committed to the book canon of "Aziraphale never sells books," we actually get more than one indication that he's willing to part with non-unique specimens at the time of the show: his bookshop is clean, well-lighted, and probably not stinky; he discusses potential purchases on the phone; he shows no hostility to casual browsers; and the Jeffery Archer books may be there primarily to throw Sandalphon off Crowley's scent, but they presumably are surrounded by other books of similar vintage. So I'm going with the theory that Aziraphale's willingness to sell books varies with conditions (and, of course, with the book). Because the joy of matching the person to the book is real, and Aziraphale doesn't go around missing joys. 
> 
> Some books, of course, are sancrosanct - his inscribed Wildes are safe in the cottage and will never be handled by any demon other than Crowley.

Rereading reports in her office, almost without respite, from the time Crowley’d swaggered off and Hastur’d started screaming to the time she’d been called by the Dark Council, had left Dagon with a reading hangover. But she had sold her argument in the meeting, and now she had the responsibility of shepherding Beelzebub through the traffic, slush, and crowds of London, so she hailed the first cab she saw, evicted the passengers already in it, and gave the driver the bookshop’s address.

If this hunch ( _not_ hunch, she was _certain_ , she _was_ \- as certain as she once had been that the Serpent of Eden had no political ambition) didn’t pan out, the Dark Council would eat her alive - literally - and Beelzebub would have no choice but to feed her to them, leaving zir functionally alone during the greatest crisis Hell had ever faced. The Dark Council would be no help to zir. They’d stay behind their closed doors to rant and plot and nurse their grievances against God, leaving zir to do the actual work, as they had done for millennia.

“Why iz it zo cold?” Beelzebub grumbled, zir flies crawling sluggishly on zir cheeks and the shoulders of zir bulky black jacket instead of cheerily hovering as usual. “Did the traitor reverze global warming, too?”

“This _is_ global warming,” Dagon assured her, with more conviction than she felt. She knocked her finger against the cold glass of the window, indicating the half-frozen heaps of grime, the mushy puddles, the pedestrians damp to the knees. “This time of year there should be snow and ice, not this mess.”

“Itz ztill too cold for my poor fliez.”

“We could wait till spring.” Dagon tried not to sound hopeful.

Beelzebub shook zir head. “We muzt be proactive. Fliez or no fliez.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, Beelzebub turning her thousand-yard-stare out the window, Dagon tweaking her outfit and rehearsing her opening lines. This would _work._ This _had_ to work. Or _she_ was doomed and _Beelzebub_ would be _alone._

Dusk was falling and the air was cold and heavy when the cab dropped them in front of the bookshop. Dagon felt the hum of Mr. Fusswing’s protective workings in the air and in the pavement, more subtle than last time she was here but definitely active. All the buildings, and the streets, and the people (in lackluster modern fashions with no heft; Dagon longed for the gravitas of a bustle, the fortified boundaries of a crinoline), were different, but the way they fit themselves into the world around the shop was not. The shop itself looked dingier, and had been repainted some time ago; but the pillars still stood on either side of the door, the sign above still said “A.Z. Fell & Co.,” the light inside still shone warmly, though the lower windowpanes were blocked by stacks of books. Through the dirty glass she saw that the sales counter now had a tarnished brass cash register on it, and a pink-haired human hanging a coat up behind it. According to the scouts, Mr. Fell might or might not be there at any given time, but since autumn this pink human had come in almost every day at around this time, to keep it open for an hour or two.

“Thiz plaze rejectz uz,” Beelzeub observed, as Dagon joined zir at the door after fooling the cabbie into thinking he was paid.

“Focus on wanting a book,” said Dagon. “The scouts all reported that this was key. The bookshop _has_ to admit beings who are looking for books, whether the wards accept them or not.” Most demons could not tell Beelzebub’s apprehensive frown from her angry frown from her pleased frown from her bored frown from her terrified frown. Dagon could. “Shall I go first?”

Beelzebub squared zir shoulders, and took her hand, the infinitesimal bristles on zir palm whisking the clammy skin on Dagon’s. “Together,” zze said. “Buying bookz.”

They went in together. Dagon’s eyes, accustomed to devouring words, read the yellowing card on one door, describing convoluted and ridiculous opening hours; and the newer, brighter card on the other that said, in rainbow letters: _Ask us about our selection of vintage queer authors!_ The bell above the door rang merrily. Dagon snapped her teeth, breaking the lock. Beelzebub’s flies hissed and smoked and fell off of her as she crossed the wards, causing zir to buzz a low, menacing note.

“Good afternoon,” said the pink-haired human. “Let me know if you need help with anything.”

“We wizh to buy bookz from Mizter Fell,” said Beelzebub.

“He’s out somewhere, but I can find most things these days. Are you looking for something in particular?”

“We are looking,” said Beelzebub, leaning across the counter to look the human in the eye, “for Mizter Fell. Zo we can buy bookz. From him. Not from you.”

Dagon smiled, showing off her teeth. The human took a step back. “All right.” The voice might have sounded steady to someone with an ear less tuned to the nuances of fear than Dagon’s. “I’ll call him. May I say who’s asking for him?”

Dagon widened her smile. “Miss Terious.”

The human pulled a mobile phone out of a rucksack behind the register, and hit a button, eyes not breaking contact with Beelzebub’s, teeth worrying lower lip. Dagon could hear the ring on the other end, faintly, twice, but not the voice that picked up. “Hi, it’s Izzy. Sorry to bother you, but Miss Terious and a, um, friend are here, say they came to buy books from Mr. Fell, not me...Uh-huh...Sure...” The human backed away from the counter, holding up a hand with one finger extended in the air, shifted its face away from the phone to say to the demons: “Excuse me a second, please - I’ll be right back -“

Beelzebub followed at its heels as it retreated through the door in the back, but could not pass through, because the general book-buying public was not allowed in the back room. “What iz it up to?” Beelzebub fretted, rattling the doorknob.

“Setting up the phoneline trick,” Dagon said soothingly. “They won’t want to do it in view of the windows.” She retained her hold on zir hand, looking around the shop. It was less dusty than the last time she’d been here, and she had the impression that the older books in the back were less old, and the new ones less new, than they had been then. Some racks at the front held flimsier, thinner publications, labeled “Zines” and “Comix” and “Ephemera.” The air smelled of dust and vanilla.

The door opened. Izzy slipped past Beelzebub, phoneless, smiling nervously. “Mr. Fell’ll be here soon. Feel free to browse. The vintage queer stuff is on the mezzanine. Did you know Virginia Woolf was queer? I always thought she was just depressed and boring, but I kind of like her now.”

“Is that where the Oscar Wilde is?” Dagon asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Apparently we’ve got the best selection of early Wilde editions in the Western Hemisphere.”

Dagon looked at Beelzebub, who looked up at the mezzanine. “High ground,” zze said, and started for the spiral staircase; but they were only halfway there when the door to the back room opened.

Crowley wore a dark red cable knit jumper, and Mr. Fell wore a pale blue one. Crowley slouched forward to block line of sight on the human, sunglasses regarding the two visiting Princes of Hell dispassionately. Mr. Fell handed the human currency and the phone. His voice sounded every bit as fussy and prim as Dagon remembered, and his terror was as sweet. “Izzy dear, please fetch us some tea and scones, and get a little something for yourself. _Not_ from across the street. You know Pauline’s place, about five blocks away?” The pink-haired human nodded. “That’s what we want. Tell her it’s the usual order, for takeaway, plus you should have whatever you’d like, in the dining room. Do some homework. I’ll call you when you can come back. Close the shop on the way out, there’s a dear.”

Izzy’s eyes darted around the room, but its fear, rather than spiking, quieted. Dagon found this disturbing, since as far as she could tell Fell wasn’t using any powers to enthrall it into calm. “Sure thing,” it said, pocketing the currency and the phone, collecting coat and rucksack. At the door, it flipped the sign to closed and fussed with the knob before saying, fear spiking again: “Something’s wrong with the lock.”

“We’ll take care of it, thank you. Mind how you go.”

The bell rang. The door closed. The sweet terror cleared, as Fell came to stand beside Crowley, who said: “I thought you lot understood that I was to be let alone.”

“We didn’t ask to see you,” said Dagon. “We asked to see Mr. Fell.”

“And buy bookz,” buzzed Beelzebub, menacingly.

“Anything you wish to say to me can be said in front of my husband,” said Fell, taking Crowley’s hand. “Is there any particular book you’re looking for?”

“I’ll be buying Wildes, in a bit. But, since you’ve brought the traitor into this, we may as well do some negotiating on the side.”

“Nope,” said Crowley. “For negotiations to work, each side needs to have something the other wants. So why don’t you buy your Wildes and bugger off?”

“We have zomething your - huzzzzband - wantz, I think. Zhow him.”

Dagon released Beelzebub’s hand to pull the envelope out of her handbag. The pen had leaked, but the handwriting was graceful and clear, and she held it up for Fell to read. He took a step forward, so she jerked it back. “Nope,” she said, mocking Crowley. “It comes postage due.”

Fell looked at Crowley, who did not appear to look back, but who could be sure with the sunglasses? “It’s from Oscar,” said Fell, in a low, small voice that made Dagon’s spine shrink for no reason she could fathom. All trace of the sweet terror had vanished. But the angel _wanted_ the envelope; and now Crowley _wanted_ to give it to him. This would _work._

“Give him his letter and get out, you bastards,” said Crowley. “Do you think we can’t _take_ it?”

“I think you _won’t_ ,” said Dagon. “Because we will not go quietly, and this is a busy corner, and I don’t think your Mr. Fusswings will like it if any of the humans outside got caught in our crossfire. Which they _would_. And with the lock broken, the banishing circle can’t be closed. Even if you can banish us both at once with it, which I doubt.”

Crowley glowered. Dagon felt a looming menace in the room, such as she’d never felt from Crowley before; and then Mr. Fell said: “Oh, _honestly_! There’s no need for all this posturing. Let’s all sit down and be comfortable and talk about this like reasonable beings. I’m sorry not to offer you refreshments, but the kettle’s in the back room and I’m _not_ leaving the three of you unsuperivised in my shop. Sit, please, all of you!” He tugged Crowley’s hand, and led him to the couch on top of a familiar rug, where they sat down, side by side, an upright angel and a slouching demon, joined at tangents of hand, knee, and foot.

Dagon felt as though a string of tension binding them all in a loop of doom had been briskly cut through. She looked at Beelzebub, who shrugged. They moved two armchairs to face the couch, and sat, Dagon with her handbag on her lap and the envelope in her hand.

“Hell iz in dizarray,” said Beelzebub. “The Dark Counzil is not pleazed.”

“Yeah, don’t care,” said Crowley. “And before you count too much on the value of that envelope in _making_ me care, Oscar Wilde is _not_ my favorite human. He was a damn site too fond of my angel.”

Mr. Fell rolled his eyes. “You’ve nothing to be jealous of, dearest! No more than I have, of you and Leonardo.”

Crowley rolled his eyebrows. “I’m not _jealou_ s, I don’t - look, just spit out what you want in exchange for the thing, and we’ll haggle. I presume this is a little more serious than a mash note from his not-so-secret admirer.”

Dagon let her mouth stretch into a grin as she thought, _Nailed it!_ She’d begun to suspect, when Beelzebub described the logic-chopping angel who’d thrown all their certainties into the wastebin at Tadfield Air Base, that she’d underestimated Mr. Fusswings, and her enlightened reread of all those reports had backed her, but here was confirmation. Mr. Fell (“That stubborn little _brat_ ,” Gabriel’d called him, during the planning of the joint operation; “that ungrateful fluff-brained _slut!_ ” he’d bellowed, after the failed executions); wasn’t Crowley’s _toy_ ; he was the Serpent of Eden’s _weak spot,_ and if Hell couldn’t exploit that, it didn’t deserve the name of Hell. Dagon pulled her laptop out of her handbag, which was not big enough to hold it, and opened the treaty file.

“Everything that had been written iz crozzed out,” said Beelzebub. “We need new writing. We do not meddle in your affairz; very well. _You_ do not meddle in _ourz._ No ztealing our agentz. No conniving at revolution in our rankz. No raining holy water on our headz.”

Crowley waved his hand. “We don’t want to do any of that, anyhow. The whole _point_ of saving the Earth was that we like it the way it is. Demons are free to wile, angels are free to thwart. As long as they’re not crossing our paths, and don’t upset the ex-antichrist, we don’t care.”

“Causing direct harm to humans or coercing their free will, however, count as crossing our path,” said Mr. Fell. “If we encounter possession, planting of sins where they don’t occur naturally, or physical or spiritual assault, we will deal with those as we see fit.”

Beelzebub hesitated, perhaps recalling some of the things the Big Boss had ranted, about being more proactive, more forceful, in future. Crowley tossed a rubber duck he hadn’t been holding before into the air and caught it with a squeeze, making it squeak. “Agreed,” zze said. Dagon typed in the appropriate verbiage. “If any demonz attempt to defect to you, you will zend them ztraight back to uz.”

“No, we won’t,” contradicted Mr. Fell. 

“If you can’t keep your people at home, that’s your lookout,” said Crowley. “I didn’t avoid Hell’s politics for six thousand years to get dragged into them now!”

“You will return Ligur’z knife.”

“Ligur’s knife? What the heaven makes you think I have that?” Crowley sounded surprised; but Crowley was a consummate liar.

“He had it on him when you murdered him. We want it back.”

“I didn’t _murder_ him. I _defended myself_. And I never saw his knife. Not that day; not since.”

“Do you mean the blade Michael gave him, back when he was her second in command?” Mr. Fell asked. “About yea long? Reforged and cursed to a fare-thee-well? Leviathan-skin scabbard?”

“Yezzz. We want it back.” Beelzebub held out her hand.

“I’m sorry.” The angel did not sound sorry. “I found it, or what was left of it, when I was cleaning up the mess in the flat. The holy water had damaged it, but it still carried some nasty curses. Crowley could have hurt himself on it. So I broke it up, blessed another bucket of water, and dissolved it.”

Beelzebub bristled. “We demand compenzation!”

“You aren’t owed any,” Crowley retorted. “When Ligur died it became mine by right of conquest. What’s mine is Aziraphale’s; what’s his, is mine. He had a right to destroy it, he did, end of story.” He turned his head toward the angel. “Still, you might have _mentioned_ it.”

“That was a busy day, as you’ll recall. It slipped my mind.”

Beelzebub vibrated with annoyance. Dagon ground her teeth. Ligur’s knife was the only instrument Hell had that could peel a major demon down to nothing; without it, discipline would remain compromised. And she was far from certain that it _was_ destroyed. Who, after all, would get rid of a weapon so potent, when it came into their hands? 

Mr. Fell smiled fondly at Crowley, and she knew the answer to that question. 

“Very well, we’ll table the issue for now,” said Dagon, suppressing the desire to snap both Fell’s ripe apple cheeks off with her teeth. “The Dark Council may have further questions on the topic later.” She detected a whiff of fear as she typed a note on the subject; but it didn’t smell like Crowley’s, and it didn’t taste like Fell’s.

“Then they can go hang,” said Crowley. “Why is _leave us alone_ so hard for you people to grasp?”

“Mr. Wilde can hardly carry on a correspondence with Mr. Fell if no one in Hell can so much as contact you.” 

“Any further communications between us and anyone in Hell may be carried out through the post,” said the angel. “This is a bookshop, not a national summit. If we decline to accept a communication, that will be the end of the matter.” He turned his head, eyes tracking something out on the street, and shifted his weight forward.

“That izz azzeptable. You will have no dealingz with Heaven.”

“We will have dealings with Heaven exactly as we have them with you: when they are forced upon us and cannot be evaded,” said Crowley. “And you will _not_ team up with those wankers against us, ever again.” 

The bell on the door jangled its cheery note, and the unfamiliar fear, sour with desperation, stumbled into the room. Fell’s eyes flashed toward Crowley; Crowley’s mouth made an almost imperceptible motion; Fell stood. Dagon and Beelzebub turned their heads to glare at a skinny human, who stared back with one huge eye, the other being swollen shut. “I - sorry -“ The human ducked its head, trying to make itself smaller as its terror filled the room.

“Goodness, you _are_ in a state, my dear,” said Mr. Fell, in an obscure human dialect and a tone that made a part of Dagon she’d thought long-dead stir in its grave of bitterness. “You’re safe here. Come into the back, and we’ll see to that eye, shall we?” He looked soft and foolish, but the radiance falling all about him hurt Dagon in parts of herself that didn’t exist anymore. The human gasped and gulped and turned its battered face toward the angelic light washing over it. Dagon ground her teeth together so hard her jaw ached. 

Fury rolled into the room as a large and bulky human struck the glass of one of the windows. “You! I see you!” The skinny human cowered and whimpered. 

“Don’t be afraid. We won’t let him near you.” Mr. Fell closed the door to the back room behind them.

“You do not dictate our relationz with Heaven,” said Beelzebub, as the human outside ran to the front of the building and hurled itself against the doors with force that should have burst them open, but did not.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Crowley. “Have all the relations you want, as long as they don’t involve any action against us. Though I pity any poor sod that tries to have relations with Gabriel.”

“Open up!” The human outside rattled the doorknob, pounded on the glass, its Wrath burning hot in the cold outside. “I know she’s in there! She stole from me! I’ll have the law on you!” The door stood fast.

Dagon looked over her shoulder at the noise. “I _broke_ that lock.” 

“You’re not the first entity to ever think that,” said Crowley, slipping sideways on the couch, stretching his legs into the space formerly occupied by Mr. Fell. “That lock’s been picked, broken, unscrewed, shot off, smashed, jimmied, carded, you name it. But if it needs to work, it works.”

The human charged the door with its shoulder as a crowd formed around it. The bookshop felt oppressively warm. 

The Serpent of Eden smiled broadly, relaxed as if he lay in a bath, resting a rubber duck on his chest. His head tilted back, drawing Dagon’s and Beelzebub’s eyes to the domed skylight above. “Funny thing about this bookshop. It took more than one direct hit during the Blitz. Never shed a brick. It’s been struck by lightning five times since August. Right on that central pane, there. Gabriel keeps having temper tantrums, y’see.” He pointed up at the stained glass, every panel of which was perfect and uncracked. “It burned down the day of the Apocalapse, books and all, windows broken, big mess.” He waved a casual arm around at the crowded dusty shelves, the grimy windows, the register. 

Outside, the big human yelled. The crowd forming around it did not seem impressed. Several people had their phones out, filming or making calls.

“Everyone in the neighborhood saw it burn. And then, next day, they saw that it was back. Adam’s paradox screwed with everyone’s memory; but everyone in the neighborhood remembers _that_.”

Dagon scanned the completed banishing circle in the center of which they sat. Dagon’s sigil was behind the sales counter, where Mr. Fell had printed it in his own life force on her previous visit. She couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to miss that, before. Being painted over hadn’t lessened its potency, a bit.

“Fine, we pledge ourzelvez not to join with Heaven againzt you,” said Beelzebub. “Can we focuz? The hiztory of thiz bookshop doez not interezt me.”

“Oh, I think you need to be aware of _some_ of this history,” said Crowley. “Wouldn’t like it to be said I _tricked_ a Prince of Hell. Wouldn’t like you to think you’d left yourself loopholes you didn’t have, or that you’d spotted a weakness that isn’t here. See, when we first got the idea of buying our own property, we thought, the way city life is, nobody’d really notice us. People come, people go, one day you’re best mates with someone, the next day they’re gone. And that’s been true for me in Mayfair, mostly, because I keep tearing the building down and putting up something even more obnoxious in its place, getting all new tenants. So even though that neighborhood is stable and respectable and full of old money, and people are vaguely aware there’s a big black vintage car roaring around parking illegally, and staff at the companies I deal long-term with know that red hair runs in the Crowley family, nobody thinks about me much, over there.”

Someone in the crowd approached the big human outside the door. He shouted and lashed out, but instead of backing off, the crowd pressed in around him.

“But this bookshop stays put while everything around it changes, and Aziraphale stays put with it. When he moved in Soho was on its way down the social scale and now two hundred years later it’s on its way back up. People move in and move out and move on. And they don’t talk about Mr. Fell. But you’d better believe - they _know_ him. They _remember_ him. He was hardly even here, for years, when we were raising the wrong antichrist. But people who needed sanctuary came here, and got what they needed. If not from him, then from people who knew the Rules, and had Faith that Mr. Fell was around, somewhere.”

Outside, the crowd of humans surrounded the large yelling human, and bore it away.

Beelzebub fidgeted. “Thiz haz nothing to do with our buzinezz.”

“Doesn’t it? People who don’t have faith in themselves or God or Satan or patriotism or science or humanity have Faith in Mr. Fell and his bookshop. They give him offerings of cakes and tea and manicures, and he listens to their troubles and lightens their burdens and shows them, over and over, how to be kind and strong in a world determined to make them cruel and weak. This is consecrated space. All I have to do to banish you from here is say your names. The air is so saturated with blessings the only reason you two aren’t shriveling where you sit is because Aziraphale doesn’t want to hurt anybody, and he can enforce that. Merely sitting here is changing you in ways you can’t imagine. You don’t even know who he _is_ , but you walked into this trap of your own free will, because you thought he could be _used_!” 

“Who izz he then?” Beelzebub did her best to sound bored and tired, and her best was very good; but Dagon saw that Crowley wasn’t fooled.

“Aziraphale was the Guardian of the Eastern Gate in Eden. That was our meet cute. Original Guardian Angel, taught the others how to do it. Rode out the Flood, not Ark, no wings, just him not wanting the condemned to die alone. Angel on the Ground for the Messiah business - you remember that one, I think? Rolled the stone away from the tomb. I could recite strings of writers and musicians he’s influenced, would make a human gasp, but that’s wasted on you lot, isn’t it? Gabriel’s got a stranglehold on all the angels that operate on Earth, even Michael - but _not_ on Aziraphale. Nobody’s _ever_ controlled Aziraphale. He kept the same body, six thousand years, never discorporated. Taught St. Patrick to take me apart, watched him do it, put me back together himself. But you were thinking _I_ seduced _him_ , didn’t you?” He reached his hand across the space between them. “Pass me the laptop and go browse the books. You’ll have your treaty, no fear. And you’ll abide by what you sign in this place, if you know what’s good for you.”

Dagon looked at Beelzebub. Zze sighed, and shrugged, and stood, wanting this to be over. The air reeked of zir fear, though zir face showed no sign. Dagon thought: _He is a liar;_ but he was a liar who had enjoyed a holy water bath in Hell, mated to an angel who breathed hellfire in Heaven’s inner sanctum, and it could take centuries to safely sort his terrifying lies from his horrifying truths. She surrendered the laptop, but not the letter.

Crowley made neither concessions, nor new demands, and on the whole, Dagon felt, the non-aggression pact he and Beelzebub e-signed was fair. Satan would break it whenever he felt like, but that wasn’t Dagon’s, or Beelzebub’s, immediate problem. They had several hundred frightened Dukes and Counts to placate, and this should at least stop them from seeing holy water in every drip running down the walls; ten million restive demons to subdue, and this should at least quiet rumors that the Serpent offered a generous enlistment bonus to join his Earthly kingdom.

She was stacking her new Wildes next to the register when the door to the back room opened and Mr. Fell came in, plump and bright, with a set of books under his arm: the funny minor angel who had tried to sell her a book once, trailing the shadow of vast wings behind him. Whatever he had been doing with the distressed human had caused him to expand into a more honest, more unsettling presence than he had cared to show before. Despite Crowley's boasting, he would still, probably, be nothing to a Prince of Hell in a fight not on his home ground; but would he and Crowley ever let it come to that? Would they not, somehow, always find a way to render violence as irrelevant as it had been at Tadfield? 

The Guardian of the Eastern Gate bent to kiss the Serpent of Eden, still lounging on the couch, and said: “We’ll have to cancel dinner, I’m afraid. Human trafficking ring, nasty business. She’s much too frightened to leave alone.”

“Eh, we’ll sort it. Business is all done, angel, but I don’t know how to work your damn register. Why can’t you get a scanner like a normal shopkeeper?”

Fell smiled in a way that made Dagon’s teeth itch and her skin crawl, walked over to the racks where Beelzebub flipped through the comix and zines, and held out the books he carried. “I hope you don’t mind, sir. I took the liberty of making a few selections on your behalf.”

Dagon, careful to keep shelves between herself and Crowley, circled around to Beelzebub’s side as zze examined the volumes. “Thezze are...inztructional?”

Mr. Fell beamed at her, wanting to be helpful. “Yes. Crowley mentioned once that what you chiefly wanted out of life post-Apocalpyse, should Hell have won, was an office with a window and a door that locked. I can’t help you with the window, but it seems to me that a Prince of Hell shouldn’t need to ask anyone’s _permission_ to have a lockable door! I don’t know what your learning style is, but these books have step-by-step instructions, pictures, and diagrams, and I’m sure _somewhere_ in your realm is _someone_ who can help with the job.”

Beelzebub stared at him. Dagon realized that the sensation rising in her chest was laughter, and that if she released it, she would not stop laughing until she wept, she who had not wept for six thousand years. Mr. Fell’s eyes crinkled at the corners, his lashes fluttered, and a small piece of cardstock appeared in his hand, to be laid on top of the books. “Here’s the information for a business which should be able to help you find any hardware you need. It can be awfully confusing, all the different kinds of nails and screws and things there are, but the owner and her wife are very patient with beginners. And, in case you have any scruples about payment, please tell them to bill me for it. So as to take advantage of me, and keep your conscience clear.”

“I - zee,” said Beelzebub. “Thank you?”

“Think nothing of it, my dear.”

Dagon reached around zir, and gave him the envelope. “We’re ready to check out, now.”

“Excellent! Let’s see what you’ve got.” 

He chattered as he rang up their purchases, about dear Oscar and oh, yes, this is a _lovely_ edition, there’s an absolute _resurgence_ of interest in Wilde recently, it’s been so _interesting_ since he started actually selling books again, for so much of the 20th century the neighborhood couldn’t have supported a shop and it became mostly a place to store his collections, to the point that he was actively driving customers _away_ , but now distressing as gentrification and tourism could be they did get far more foot traffic these days from people for whom vintage books were, were _relevant_ as he believed the young people would say? (“They wouldn’t, angel!”) And now he had the cottage to keep his _real_ treasures in, and Izzy had _so many_ good ideas for what to stock and how to arrange things to attract the people who, who really _need_ to find the place, she had the makings of a real mover and shaker in the industry if she cared to make it her profession but oh, they’d need a _tote bag_ , he’ll throw that in for free, _please_ don’t tell Izzy, it made her _so_ cross when he did that, but really the wholesale cost is _negligible_ and how else are people supposed to carry the books! Next time they went book shopping anywhere they _must_ remember to carry it with them, because those plastic carrier bags, such dreadful _flimsy_ things and so _bad_ for the birds and fish and so on, and they don’t even hold that much!

Beelzebub looked as stunned as Dagon felt, emerging from the bookshop onto the slushy, grimy corner. The human with pink hair walked past them with a smile and an “excuse me,” carrying in a baker’s box and two steaming takeaway cups. Dagon couldn’t tell whether they’d been in the shop for an hour or a year; but the large human who had beaten on the door sat slumped in the café opposite, hemmed in by humans who loomed over it being emphatic. 

“Earth iz a ztrange plaze,” said Beelzebub, clutching zir new tote bag, emblazoned on the side with a picture of a kitten sitting on a pile of books. “Let’z go home.”

“Let’s,” said Dagon, summoning a cab.

\---

_My dear Fell,_

_I fear this will not be the sort of missive we used to enjoy exchanging, as it is difficult to be witty or provoking with Miss Dagon breathing down my neck, but I am far too delighted by the news she brings of you to pass up the opportunity to communicate. You sly boots, letting me run on about virtue and vice and beauty and what not, and never dropping even a hint of your true nature! Now that I know, you may be assured that I will hunt down a muse or two and exploit your history to my own poetic gain. It will make a change from reciting “Reading Gaol,” which is inexplicably popular with the rest of the damned when we hold our entertainments._

_That, however, is neither here nor there. I gather that Miss Dagon has some nefarious use in mind for this missive, and hasten to assure you that I will never forgive you if you allow any threats or offers concerning my own welfare to sway you one jot from whatever purpose she wishes to upset. I am, after all, exactly where I belong, having arrived here of my own free will. The entirety of Hell is stirred into a state of pleasurable uncertainty by you and your inamorata, so whatever you are doing, believe me, is worth any cost they are likely to exact from me!_

_I scarcely hope that we will be allowed to correspond properly, and gather that you are on the outs with your own people; however, if you should happen to get an opportunity to convey to Constance and Robbie, who reside upstairs, my fondest regards, and assurances that nothing here has yet forced me to be serious, you will have, for what it may be worth, my eternal gratitude._

_Yours affectionately, O. Wilde_


	3. Code Violet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel is catching heat from further up the food chain, and is ready to take some personal risks to hand the Seraphic Committee a different scapegoat. Humans aren't dangerous, and Aziraphale's attached to them, so all he needs is to get into Tadfield and kidnap an ex-antichrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Dagon, Gabriel can't gender humans on sight. Unlike Dagon, he misgenders Beelzebub because that's the way he is.

_Aziraphale -_

_This is no way to end a good, productive six thousand year working relationship. Tempers ran high and we both did and said things we didn’t mean. Now that everybody’s had time to cool down, we should meet some place neutral and talk it out, one on one. I’ll even consume some of that gross matter you like so much. Can’t say fairer than that, right? Everybody up here misses you and really wants you back on the team. I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about the whole Earth project, but now I know, I’m sure we can work something out that’s mutually acceptable. There’s no need to be childish about this. Throw me a bone, here!_

_\- Gabriel_

The first, formal missive, typed out by his personal secretary Vretil and sent through regular channels to the desk in the back room of Aziraphale’s earthly lair, might as well have been dropped into a black hole. The second, less formal one, which he had typed up and sealed _himself_ after reading through Muriel’s report two or three times (the footage the Akashic Records had sent him had been unusable, full of static and interference), had been carried by his personal gofer, Haggai, who had been unable to penetrate the wards on the cottage and finally had to send it by British mail. Gabriel still wasn’t positive it had ever arrived. This one, written in his own hand and with no cover at all, in glowing ink that couldn’t fail to catch the little brat’s eye, would find him where ever he was on earth, even the lair of that dratted angel-filching Serpent, and would surely be impossible to ignore. He read it over, found no flaw, passed his hand over it, and sent it on its way. There! Gabriel smiled, feeling the message Delivered.

And then he felt it go up in smoke. What the - ? That hadn’t been enough time to read to the end of the first line!

Gabriel growled in frustration, kicking his smoothly rolling office chair back and sideways to peer out over the Celestial City and drum his fingers on the glass wall. Pyramids and skyscrapers, parks and concert halls, bathed in eternal sunlight, the best view anywhere, and all his - but for how much longer? His staff could declare their confidence in him all they wanted, but the fact remained, his department was under investigation, and that meant _he_ was under investigation, and that meant that the seraphim would get _somebody’s_ halo and there was a non-zero chance it would his. 

Michael had already broken ranks and pointed the finger at him. Sandalphon could be counted on to dig up the dirt to sling back at her, and he’d brought Michael to heel before; but the Guardians, the wind beneath his wings, were restless. Rumors ran whispering away from him down the broad halls of Heaven, rumors he could never quite catch, but Hellfire was in them, and Holy Water, and somebody had leaked something, somewhere, and he needed, when he was called before the Seraphic Committee, to have a sacrifice in hand. _The_ sacrifice. He needed _Aziraphale_ , all trussed up and ready to roast -

_Roasting in Hellfire, that mild fussy anxious face splitting open in an incandescent laugh of fiery annihilation -_

Gabriel realized he was clenching his fists, and relaxed them. He hadn’t dared to have respiration or heartbeat for some time now. _Calm_. It was essential to be calm, to present the familiar unruffled facade at all times. _I am the archangel fucking Gabriel and I am in control - never mind that Beelzebub isn’t picking up the phone any more, never mind the memos from higher up, never mind the whispers, never mind -_

The phone in his jacket pocket rang, the opening notes of “The Lonely Goatherd.” He grabbed for it, than sat holding it, letting it get all the way to the first yodel before hitting “ANSR” and barking, all genial camaraderie: “Hey, Beelz, thanks for getting back to me! What’s the good word?“

“We only have bad words down here,” said the voice at the other end, who wasn’t Beelz, but someone with a frog in his throat. 

“I don’t know who you are, buddy, but I don’t think Lord Beelzebub would like you borrowing her phone.”

“It’s not zirs anymore,” croaked the frog-voice. “I fished it out of zir trash. That makes it mine.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s not actually how ownership works.”

“It is with us. Is this Gabriel?”

“Who wants to know?” He should hang up. Anybody who fished equipment out of the trash in Hell was beneath his dignity. 

_Wheeze_. “Hastur. Duke of Hell. In charge of the ‘getting into Tadfield’ project that Beelzebub left in the lurch. If you’re not Gabe, fetch him.”

“Gabriel. The name is _Gabriel._ ” Nevertheless, he came to attention. “So how’s that project going?”

“Heaven’s still interested? Haven’t been signing any non-aggression pacts with angels you can’t control?”

“I can control my angels _fine_.”

“Sure, Gabe.”

“So can you get me into Tadfield, or did you call me up because you've run out of demons to be rude to?”

“The window of opportunity shrinks every day, but yeah, I’m looking at the way in, right now.”

Gabriel glided his chair over to the desk. Sandalphon would throw a fit if he ran off by himself, but Sandalphon was busy with the Michael matter, Tadfield was a need-to-know subject, and Gabriel remembered Hastur. Duke of Hell he might be, with more raw power than an Archangel, but he was a long way from the sharpest arrow in the quiver. Ligur’d pulled his strings, (according to Michael, who’d always managed to keep tabs on her old lieutenant) and Ligur was gone, so he was ripe for a new puppetmaster, and Gabriel badly needed a new puppet. He located his pad of sticky notes and scrawled _S - Gone to Tadfield, back soon - G_ across it. “All right, I’m coming through,” he said.

He hadn’t had occasion to travel by telephone before. A flash of lightning was much more on-brand for him, and he didn’t care for the idea of being “small” in any sense, even given that size was mostly an illusion of perspective. But since the beacon of the Apocalypse winked out, all his attempts to reach Tadfield in any more dignified way had resulted in his being dumped unceremoniously in random locations around Earth, from the top of a 50-foot statue somewhere in America, to the middle of a crowd being tear-gassed somewhere in Asia. He was _not_ desperate, because the Archangel Gabriel didn’t _do_ desperate, but he was also not in the mood to pass up a chance, so down the zipping fizzing strobing cell phone signal path he went. When he popped out the other side he remained small long enough to ensure that he was properly oriented, then grew to full size and stuck the landing.

Unfortunately, he did not notice the cloud of tobacco smoke until his head materialized in the middle of it. Good thing he’d never activated the olfactory organs on this corporation.

Gabriel blew the smoke away with a gentle zephyr, clearing his view of a country roadside. The disheveled figure in the macintosh beside him grinned and blew more smoke. Gabriel summoned a breeze to drive it back into the demon’s face. “So, this way in - presumably that’s this road? Which direction?”

“Tadfield’s that way.” Hastur pointed. “But they blocked it already. Have to go through the woods.”

Gabriel looked at the wet, droopy vegetation, mostly bare sticks frosted with tiny green leaves, and the mud, and the dead leaves rotting into mud. The paved road wasn’t appealing, either, but at least it was clear and solid. “We’ll see about that.” A large vehicle zoomed past, heading toward Tadfield, and he saw it slip through wards as easily as flying into a cloud. 

“Knock yourself out,” said Hastur, leaning against a tree. “You will, if you run at it too fast.”

It couldn’t be _that_ solid, based on the vehicle’s nonreaction. Gabriel strode up to the inert, invisible structure, slicing ahead of himself with his will, and found himself pushed back before he even reached it. The touch of the wards on his aura was jarring, hot and dry and contemptuous - _not you, Gabriel, we specifically do not want you!_

“That’s...interesting,” he said, ignoring Hastur’s snort of laughter. He adjusted his sight to see the working better. It was a lot like the one around the traitors’ cottage, but denser and more personal, and - what the -? “Is that hellfire?”

“Not exactly,” said Hastur. “We’re calling it Youngfire. Adam’s signature. He’s not of Hell, anymore. But damn if he can’t put the heat into a ward. You can light your cigarette on that, if you’re careful, but you’ll never get through it.”

“Never is a long time,” said Gabriel. He considered bringing his sword out, but the Youngfire was probably volatile, and he could imagine far too many unfortunate side effects of impact with heaven-forged metal. “Obviously if I set enough angels on this they’ll beat it. But it’s hardly worth that for a simple recon mission.” Which this was not, but Hastur didn’t need to know that. “What’s the open route?”

Hastur pointed downslope. “You can still get into Hogback Wood through here if you can punch through some temp wards. Not much longer, though - the witch and her apprentice have been tramping around planning the permanent ward network.” Hastur swallowed the stub of his cigarette, still lit, and materialized a new one, setting his whole hand burning to light it, an ostentatious display which was either wasteful, or intended to intimidate.

Gabriel could not be thus intimidated. “Lead on, then.”

“Lead yourself.” Hastur put one muddy foot up against the trunk of the tree he leaned against. “I’m not going in there.”

“Scared, demon?” Gabriel knew exactly the right amount of amused contempt to put into the words. “I thought you were a Duke.”

“Yeah, and you also think I’m stupid,” said Hastur. “ _Ligur_ was a Duke. Beelzebub’s a _Prince_ , and when zze got back from visiting the Bookshop zze called off the project and went shopping for a lock on zir office. The last time anybody tried to use a TV to see how Crowley’d react to a threat, every circuit in Hell died. Nobody knows where Mr. Slick is at any given minute, but I know one place he _ain’t_ , and I’m _staying_ here.”

“Pathetic,” said Gabriel.

Hastur blew smoke straight up his own nostrils. “Alive.”

“Fine. Give me the phone.”

“Nope.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Gabriel. “You stole Beelzebub’s phone after she called off the Tadfield operation, so you could call me to go in without any backup?”

“Not my fault you didn’t bring any backup.”

“This is beginning to look like a trap.”

“Why would I want to trap _you_ , wankwings? You’re the only one left who’s ready to pursue the traitors. I’m giving you the chance. Take it or don’t.”

“Your minimal contribution will be duly noted when I bring them in.” Gabriel turned on his heel and strode downhill. Or would have, if the damp hadn’t kept the leaves and mud shifting underfoot so that he tended to slip forward at every step, having to steady himself against trees that tried to leave residues of bark on his palms. Nothing about this was satisfactory, but he was running out of time even in Heaven.

He wasn’t sure this would work.

It _had_ to work. He _needed_ Aziraphale to feed to the Seraphic Committee. Tadfield was clearly still important to Aziraphale and his, his, _that demon_ or it wouldn’t be getting new and beefed up wards. Presumably the traitors had further use for the child, which - judging by the anomalous fire in the ward on the road - still had some level of power. _Or_ \- and having known Aziraphale for 6000 years, Gabriel was willing to gamble a lot on this possibility - they were still attached to it.

Attachment had always been Aziraphale’s big weakness. It had also led to some impressive feats, a kind of back-to-front strength that had gradually come to fascinate Gabriel as much as it annoyed him. The Flood, that business with Patrick, the incredible longevity of his crippled corporation regardless of what dangers he was sent into; even his famed ability to deal with the Serpent of Eden had been, apparently, rooted in a perverse attachment to his adversary. (Gabriel’s mind shied away from the memory of the spectacle they’d presented at the airfield, two beings destined for eternal opposition mutually sustained by a blasphemous parody of love stronger and brighter than anything he’d seen in Heaven since the Fall; it did not bear thinking of and so he did not think of it.) If he’d only been able to bond that attachment to himself and hone it to a worthy purpose, an extension of his own will - ! 

But the time for that had passed. If he secured the antichrist, he would secure the angel who had - who _must_ have - groomed it for rebellion under cover of that peculiar double-bluff of pretending to groom the wrong child. This would be a straightforward operation, if not for the damn Serpent - the obvious mastermind, no matter how he thrust Aziraphale and the humans into the limelight. Nothing was straightforward, with Crowley involved.

Gabriel didn’t like not knowing where the traitors were. If they were in Tadfield, he’d probably have to retreat whether he secured the antichrist or not, and return quickly with overwhelming force, which would not be as easy as it would have been had Michael not jumped ship. If, however, he faced only the child and a handful of humans, his problems would practically solve themselves. Either way, the moment to act was now.

Gabriel met the temporary ward about halfway down the slope. Compared to the dense, layered protections around the bookshop, the cottage, the road, and the demon’s flat, it was a flimsy thing; compared to the ordinary wards erected by human practitioners “calling the corners,” it was moderately sophisticated, tying in to a chthonic ley and infused with spiritual energies recognizably occult and ethereal. He manifested his sword, located a relatively weak spot, and slashed, severing the ward from the ley and collapsing about a quarter of a mile of barrier with two or three strokes. The lowering skies above the wood crackled, and the fine hairs on his corporation stood up in the charged air, but the way into Hogback Wood was open now, and he could hear the shouts of children and the clamor of a beast. A dog. A travesty of a Hellhound.

Gabriel followed the sound.

Four young humans ran and shouted, kicking a ball up and down a muddy slope. None had the distinctive antichrist Presence, and all had significantly stronger auras than he’d have expected from their size, but one’s aura contained all the others in a huge loving embrace, so that must be the one he wanted. He extended his will to apply pressure to the others, giving them a sense of urgent business Elsewhere, and was surprised to find them pushing back against him. The animal darted to stand between the humans and him, growling. The humans froze in their tracks, the ball bouncing away unnoticed.

Gabriel smiled, his eyes on the diminished antichrist. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “The rest of you can go, but Adam, I need to speak to you.”

The dog started barking furiously. “Code Violet,” shouted Adam, and the humans scattered in four directions.

Gabriel flicked his wings in the adjacent dimension and teleported directly in front of Adam, putting a compulsion into his voice. “I said, _do not be afraid. I need to speak to you.”_

“Get stuffed,” said Adam, as the dog dashed across the ground to sink its teeth in Gabriel’s perfectly-tailored trouser leg.

Gabriel kicked, which should have sent the beast flying, but its eyes glowed red and it bit deeper. More Hellhound was left in there than had at first appeared. “Call off your animal before I smite it!”

“ _If you smite anyone or anything in Tadfield, no hole in Hell or height of Heaven will hide you from the wrath you incur,_ ” Adam informed him, in a voice that was at one level casual and at another level reverberating with power. 

The child had been coached. Those words were a spell - not the power of the antichrist, or any known supernatural faction, but it _was_ power, and must be nipped in the bud. “That’s not how this works, sunshine,” said Gabriel, seizing the child by its bulky jacket.

The animal pulled at his trouser leg, Adam unexpectedly lowered its head and slammed into Gabriel’s stomach, his elegant shoes lost traction on the half-rotted leaves, and somehow he was sitting on the ground holding a torn jacket while the child and the beast dashed away through the trees.

“Right,” said Gabriel, gauging their trajectory, dropping the jacket, and twitching his wings. Land on top of Adam, get a good firm grip, and teleport straight to Heaven. Which might damage the corporation, but that’s what happened to disobedient brats!

He crashed out of the teleport at a warded footpath a good two feet short of his target, and the child swerved, heading uphill rather than down. The ward was better than the temporary one had been, but not nearly as good as the one on the road, and didn’t tie into a ley. Gabriel almost pulled his sword to clear it, but the child was crossing an unwarded slope, so he seized the moment and twitched his wings again, overshooting the mark this time, appearing directly in the child’s path, with his broadest grin already plastered on, and his arms open. Welcoming. “We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here,” he said, as the animal growled and Adam recoiled, dancing from foot to foot, making it hard to gauge the best moment to strike. 

“I’ll say ye have, Yank,” said an unfamiliar voice behind him. “Hold still, if ye want to keep yer head on.”

Other humans being irrelevant, Gabriel didn’t take his eyes off Adam. “You’re probably confused right now. I bet you’ve heard a lot of unpleasant things about me. But all I want to do is help you realize your full potential. Your destiny! Have they told you who I am? I’m the _Archangel Gabriel!_ One of the _best_ good guys there’s ever been. And we really need to talk. In private.”

Adam dodged sideways, ducking as Gabriel lunged. A loud noise sounded behind him, and almost simultaneously something large and hard impacted the back of his head.

Gabriel whirled to glare at whoever had dared assault him, confronted by a grubby human with a large shiny implement on its shoulder, its gaping maw still smoking. “Dammit,” said the human. “That was a good brick, too. Ye’re tougher’n you look but ye’re not tougher than the Witchfinder Army, ye tosser!”

He did not have time for this. “Shut your stupid mouth,” he snapped, his words creating a geas depriving the human of speech, but before he could resume his pursuit of Adam, now well up the slope, another voice came huffing up, accompanied by whiny yaps.

“Shadwell! What’ve I told you about shooting off that blasted menace? You’ll hurt somebody one of these days and I for one will be happy to testify against you in a court of law!” 

“Forget that! There’s the man trying to kidnap Adam!” The second voice was shrill and commanding, and at the sound of it the antichrist stopped climbing and turned to look.

Was this secular authority? _That_ could be turned to his purposes! But though one newcomer was a respectable-looking older human, he had some weird elongated animal with him, while the other was one of the children, the dark one with the frizzy hair. “I think there’s been some misunderstandings here,” Gabriel said, “but no harm done. I just need a word with young Adam.”

“What’s he done now?”

“Nothing!” Adam shouted down.

“I _told_ you, that’s a kidnaper!” The frizzyheaded one declared. 

The muted human made an attempt to speak, glared at Gabriel when it failed, and braced the butt of the implement against the ground. Gabriel directed his smile at the respectable older human. “Children! So dramatic. As a matter of fact, I bring good tidings of great joy, only Adam’s being a little rascal.”

The muted human took a pouch out of the pocket of its macintosh and poured some kind of powder down the mouth of the implement. The elongated animal surged forward on the end of the leash the respectable human held, sniffed Gabriel’s shoes, and growled low in its chest. The ex-hellhound, upslope with the antichrist, barked incessantly. The respectable human’s face made expressions Gabriel couldn’t quite parse. “If you have information to Adam’s advantage, why aren’t you at his house talking to his parents?”

Parents? Right, the antichrist had been placed with surrogates. “I happened to run across Adam while on my way to do that,” said Gabriel. “If you could help me -“

“He came through the woods,” said the frizzyhaired child. “Strange grownups never do that!”

“Now, do I look like I was traipsing through wooodlands?” Gabriel indicated his pristine clothing, and debated patting the child on its head. That was the kind of thing human adults did to human young, right? This one looked like it might bite him, though.

The muted human produced a long thin rod from some improbable part of its horrible macintosh, and tamped down the powder.

“Where’s your car?” The respectable human asked.

“It’s probably a white van and it’s probably parked in the woods,” said the frizzyhaired one. “With duck tape and stuff in the back.”

Adam said: “Honest, Mr. Tyler, he tried to grab me. Tore my jacket off. We’ve seen him hanging about before. Call my dad. He’ll sort it out.”

“Oh, believe me, your father will be summoned, Adam!” The respectable man sounded weirdly triumphant. “Officer Johnson is on her way right now, I have no doubt, after hearing that monstrous gun go off, and she won’t hesitate to call him!”

“I didn’t fire the gun, Mr. Shadwell did, and he only did it to scare the kidnaper away from me. Tell them, Mr. Shadwell!”

The muted human, in the middle of stuffing a handful of rocks down the implement, cleared its throat as the geas unraveled, worked its jaw a few times, and said: “Aye, that’s true enough. What’d you think, I’m in the habit of firing bricks at people? Hasn’t it been rock salt the last three times ye had the law on me over it?”

Gabriel barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping, and glared at Adam, who smirked. Right. The brat’s power was bound to be strongest here on its native turf. He needed to get this ridiculous situation under control before yet more humans showed up to complicate things. He twitched his wings to teleport to Adam, and remained where he was. 

He could not, in fact, feel his wings at all.

He could not, when he reached for it, find his sword, either. As if he only had access to the normal four dimensions of Earth. As if he had stepped into a new ward or spell effect or or something, without noticing it, which shouldn’t be _possible_ -

Calm. He must not let these humans see that he was, was, whatever this sensation was, frustrated, off-center, not knowing what to expect. He did not _like_ this sensation and he would _not_ acknowledge it. “There’s no need for all this fuss,” he said, striding confidently up the hill toward Adam, only to find the enormous implement barring his path and the Shadwell human snarling at him above it. 

“Ye’ll wait for the law, ye sod, and leave the bairns alone. Adam! Pepper! It’s too cold out here, and Adam with nae coat on. Up to the house with ye. The missus is making tea.”

“But we’re witnesses!” The frizzyhaired one protested.

“So? Ye can be witnesses in the warm, can’t ye? Off with ye, now! See, there’s the officer coming, we’ll be along in two ticks.”

Sure enough, two more humans were coming up the warded path, one of them another of the antichrist’s child associates, who pointed at Gabriel with one hand, pushed a pair of spectacles up its nose with the other, and said: “Actually, the kidnaper is standing right there” in clear and ringing tones.

Gabriel wondered whether Sandalphon had gotten back to the office yet, and what had happened to his dimensional access, and whether dogs ever stopped making noise, and whether he shouldn’t just go to true form and cut through all the red tape. The Seraphic Committee probably wouldn’t like that. Seraphim, not dealing with embodied humans on any regular basis, tended to think that things like driving them mad or burning their eyes out were overreactions, though he’d like to see a seraph deal with all this, without normal access to resources - they’d soon begin to see the appeal. Better hold off until he figured out what was wrong and could teleport again. His chance would come. Lawful Authority, at least, ought to be on his side.

“All right, now, what’s all this then?” The new human flashed some sort of badge. “You have a license for that contraption yet, Mr. Shadwell?”

“Ye found the right form for me to fill out for it yet?” Mr. Shadwell retorted. “Ye can persecute me about it later, after ye’ve dealt with the yankee kidnaper!”

“Ah, yes, the kidnaper!” The new human smiled at Gabriel in a harmless, ingratiating way that reminded him unpleasantly of Aziraphale. A smile like that could hide a lot of treachery. “I’m Officer Maggie Johnson of the Tadfield Constabulary. May I see some ID, sir?

“Certainly,” said Gabriel, reaching into his coat and willing something appropriate to appear. “Appropriate” was apparently a small wallet with a bunch of cards in it, one of which had his picture on it. He held this up so everybody could see it, and focused on satisfying Lawful Authority.

“Gabriel Archangel,” she read off. “I bet you had a hard time in school. From Chicago in America. You’re a long way from home.”

He smiled, one Lawful Authority to another, and took the wallet back. “I go where my business takes me. Look, I’m sure you’re a very busy human, as am I. If I could have five minutes of private conversation with Adam, everything would be cleared up and I’ll be out of your hair.” If he could get the wings working, but for now he focused on making Lawful Authority feel satisfied with this answer. 

Officer Johnson’s eyes went glassy. “Sounds legit.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said the dark frizzy child.

“He’s a kidnaper,” repeated the one with glasses.

Adam was silent, but Gabriel felt the force of his will rolling over them all, warm to the point of discomfort. Officer Johnson blinked. “Kidnaping. Right. Adam, do you know this man?”

“I’ve seen him hanging about,” said Adam. “He gave us a fright last summer. This time he tried to grab me and tore my jacket off. If you look in the woods you’ll find it.”

“I know him well enough,” said Shadwell unexpectedly. “Well-known child buggerer in London. Look in yer police database or whatnot, ye’ll find him there. Violet eyes and posh clothes and a yank accent. Right monster, this one. Slippery, too. Make yer career, ye bring this one in.”

Gabriel stared at the audacity of this bare-faced lie. “You know there’s a commandment against bearing false witness, right? Lying about _me’ll_ send you straight to Hell.”

“If Heaven’s full of wankers like you I don’t want to go there nohow,” said Shadwell. “Let’s take this up to my house before Adam freezes.”

“I’m not going anywhere near your house,” said Gabriel.

“Right,” said Officer Johnson, pulling free of angelic influence while he was distracted. “Off to the station with us, all of us. Adam, you got your phone? Call your parents to meet us there. I have a feeling this will take awhile to sort out.”

“This really isn’t necessary,” said Gabriel, pushing his influence again; but Adam pushed influence, too, and neither could get a grip.

So off they all trooped, down the hill and into town to a small official building, traversing a series of wards which Gabriel wished he had more time to study, most of which would have been nearly as impenetrable as the one on the road into town had he not been under official escort. Their little procession was met on the way by two more adult humans, one of whom hugged Adam a lot and the other of whom fussed at the other adults about the meaning of this. The Tyler human talked almost constantly, but Gabriel had already written that one off as unimportant. He alternated between reaching for his wings and sword and trying to decide which of the adults to influence in order to get what he needed, but both of Adam’s “parent” humans were shielded in ways he’d never even heard of before. It didn’t help that the children wouldn’t shut up, the Shadwell kept pointing its implement at Gabriel, and the beasts conversed without letup in yelps, whines, and body movements.

At the official building, the animals were, to his relief, tied up outside while Gabriel and the humans were all escorted to some sort of waiting area and given flimsy cups of a hot liquid matter, which everyone except Gabriel drank. Officer Johnson sent an underling to Hogback Wood to look for Adam’s jacket, asked for Gabriel’s ID again and gave it to another underling, and then gave everyone forms to write statements on. Gabriel’s attempts to get within grabbing distance of Adam were frustrated by his parents, all four children, and the Shadwell human, who clutched his implement and protested vigorously all attempts to part him from it. 

Gabriel felt veins he didn’t possess swelling in his forehead, and the impact site on the back of his head began to ache. By now he’d worked out that his difficulties were down to elements in the wards all over this town interfering with his access to power, and to Adam specifically interfering with the power he _could_ access. The noise and distraction also rendered forming and sticking to a plan of operation difficult. Should he focus on Officer Johnson, as the lawful human authority others had to obey? Shadwell’s behavior did not encourage him to believe that this would work. Should he focus on punching through the shields on Adam’s parents? Or should he, undignified as the option was, physically fight his way to the child and drag it back toward the last place he’d been able to access his wings? If he’d been going to do that he should have done it to begin with, as he was now much further from that point, and though his corporation was stronger than a human’s, it wasn’t built for speed.

So absorbed was he in working through his options, he only vaguely noticed when the underling who had possession of his ID made a strangled noise and beckoned Officer Johnson over to its electronic device. When the officer next approached him, it smiled in a different way than it had smiled earlier. “Mr. Archangel? I’m going to need you to come with me.”

“Come where?” Gabriel asked.

“We’ll need to take your fingerprints. Also, I should mention that you are not obliged to speak to us, and that anything you say may be taken down and given in evidence.”

The Shadwell human, awkwardly writing with one hand and hugging his implement with the other, made a satisfied noise. “Ye found him in the predator database, didn’t ye? I knew ye would!”

“Predator?” The Tyler human repeated the word, in tones of horror. “Do you mean to tell us that a _pedophile_ from _America_ is targeting the _innocent children_ of Tadfield?” 

One of the parent humans clutched Adam, while the other stood and spread itself protectively between Gabriel and all four young humans, even though it could barely cover one.

“I need to take your fingerprints, sir.” Officer Johnson sounded very firm indeed.

“My what?” Gabriel looked at his smooth, unmarked fingers. 

“We don’t want any misidentifications on such a serious charge.”

Gabriel sorted through all the words that had been thrown at him in the past sixty seconds. “Wait. You think I’m someone who practices Lust on immature humans? But that’s absurd!”

“Then you won’t mind giving us your fingerprints.”

Gabriel looked over at Adam. The former antichrist and its friends, with no other humans looking at them, shrugged and smiled small, unkind smiles. “You can’t _slander_ me like that.”

“You don’t belong here,” said Adam. “You aren’t welcome. _Begone, Gabriel._ And don’t come back.”

“Aziraphale, you miserable conniving little bastard!” Gabriel howled, lunging, but he was already gone, somewhere darker and windier than the phone lines. He had a sense of time, of space, of direction; but not of control.

He was the _Archangel Gabriel_. He _had_ to be in control, or - or what would he be?

He stumbled on landing, but regained his footing immediately, thanks to reflexes religiously honed over millennia to not let him down in a pinch. A lesser being might have been blinded by the rage that filled him, but Gabriel oriented himself at once. An alley in a noisy overcast city, a blank wall behind him, a door before him, on one hand the alley stretching out with doors and small high windows and trash bins, on the other hand a short distance to vehicular traffic. Horns blaring, music playing, someone laughing, and a slouchy slothful voice saying: “There you are at last. I was getting worried.”

The speaker blocked the closed door before him, back braced against the doorframe on one side, feet bracing the doorframe on the other; lean in black with red accents, shock of red hair, sunglasses instead of eyes, one hand in a pocket, the other holding a sleek black mobile phone. A gold ring glittered on the third finger of the hand holding the phone; a ring glowing with a familiar, nonmaterial radiance.

 _“Crawly,”_ said Gabriel, reaching for his sword. Not finding it.

“Gabe,” said Crowley, thumbing a button on the phone.

Screw it. He didn’t _need_ a sword. “Where is he?” Gabriel demanded, striding forward, swinging his fist, slamming into the wall of the circle containing him. It sparkled where he struck it, lighting the nearly invisible lines worked into the pavement. The air was dry and warm and humming and felt like - felt like - 

“Where he’ll _always_ be from now on,” said Crowley. “Someplace you’re _not_. So he’ll never have to _look_ at you, or _hear_ you, or _think_ about you. Ever again.” He hit another button and raised the phone to his face. 

The circle was roomy, taking up nearly the width of the alley, big enough to lie down in comfortably if Gabriel would have lowered himself to do so. Touching the walls did not hurt, but did not reveal any weak spots he could exploit from this side, either. He could not access his wings, or his sword, or the miraculous power that hummed in the air all around him, or his personal reserve. He could tell they were all there; but was as powerless to reach them as an amputee is to reach a severed limb. The atmosphere inside was warm, and vital, and felt like - felt like -

“Hey, book girl. He’s here...Yeah, tell the kid he did good and I hope he never has to do that again. _Please_ tell me nobody got smote?...Outstanding. You and the Luddite do good work. I’d ask you to teach me that trick, but it’d kind of spoil the point...Yeah, the trap’s looking real good so far. I’ll let you know how it goes... What’s he look like? You got any kind of vibe off him?...Mmhmm...Mmm...Sounds like Hastur. A Duke, so, whatever you do - Do Not Engage! Call Aziraphale, get Adam under wraps, and I’ll call back as soon as I’m done with this arsehole.. _.He what_?” Crowley laughed and turned his head to watch Gabriel as he tested the limits of the circle. “Well, he doesn’t look any the worse for it, but high five the old bastard from me and give Tracy a hug...You know it. Ciao.” He thumbed the screen again, pocketed the phone, and grinned. “I hear Shadwell hit you with a brick from the old thundergun. Nice tough corporation you’ve got, surviving that.”

“I can survive a lot more,” said Gabriel. “You’ve made a _big_ mistake, demon. You’ll bring the whole wrath of Heaven down upon your head.”

“Eh, you’ll be back way before it comes to that,” said Crowley. 

A human approached from the near end of the alley, someone stooping, something in his movements suggesting that it had once been larger and moved more confidently. “Hi, Mr. Crowley,” it said, in a voice that quivered at the edges. “This is him, huh?”

“This is him.”

“I don’t know who he’s told you I am,” said Gabriel, “but you should know, it would be greatly to your advantage to let me out. I could bestow blessings on you beyond your wildest dreams, and all you have to do is breach the circle with your foot. Right here.” He pointed at the crucial juncture, as the human peered in at him. “You should also know that this _Mr. Crowley?_ Is _not_ what he seems. He’s -“

“You mean he’s _not_ Mr. Fell’s husband?” The human face, stubbled with gray hair, collapsing in upon itself with age, regarded him, eye to eye. “You’re wrong about that. And I don’t _care_ who else he is, besides that.”

“Mr. Fell?” Gabriel repeated. “You mean _Aziraphale_?”

“I mean _Mr. Fell,_ ” said the human. “Look, I don’t know what all this is about, I don’t know who you are, all I know is, I got Code Violet on my phone and Code Violet is, _Come to the alley behind the bookshop and break the Rules. Talk about Mr. Fell, to the bastard who needs to know.”_

“Mr. Fell,” said Gabriel, meeting the human’s eyes squarely, “is a traitor to Heaven.”

The human shrugged. “You remember the AIDS epidemic? My boy Ned died in that. My fault. I kicked him out when he was sixteen, _so sure_ if I didn’t break Ned of being queer he’d go to Hell, and nothing else was working, so - I kicked him out. Tough love, we called it. Read about it in a magazine, talked to my wife and his teachers about it, thought long and hard about it. The idea was, Ned’d hit bottom, see the error of his ways, and come back repenting. He didn’t. Mr. Fell came to see us, though, three times. First time, he tried to explain how being gay works, asked us to let Ned come home. I wouldn’t. Wouldn’t listen, not to a soft old – I called him the f-word to his face. I can’t believe how I used to toss that word around, like chucking rocks. He never blinked. Second time, he told us Ned was living in shelters, needed help getting a place. I wouldn’t give it, wouldn’t let his Mum give it. She was fighting me on it, by then, but I was stubborn, I _believed,_ y’see, it _had_ to work because, because it if _didn’t_ I was a terrible dad that did a terrible thing to my boy. Third time, Mr. Fell came to tell us Ned was in the hospital, wanted to see us. I wouldn’t go, wouldn’t let his mum go. She went anyway. We damn near divorced over it. But she was right. I _knew_ she was right, by then, but by the time I could admit it, Ned was dying. And by that time, Ned wouldn’t see me.”

“You thought he was defying your authority,” said Gabriel. “You were holding by your principles. That’s not wrong.”

“It is if your principles are bad. And if your principles throw a kid out on the street - _they’re bad_.” The old human wiped its eyes on its sleeve. “Mr. Fell was the one that wouldn’t let me in the hospital room, then. Guarded the door, like. Ned owed me nothing. I’d given up on him, so he gave up with me. I kept coming back, and he never would see me. Too busy dying. But Mr. Fell, he took me to see another boy, from Sri Lanka, that didn’t have any family in England, dying on the same floor. I couldn’t be there for Ned anymore, but I could be there for Umed. So. I was. Mr. Fell brought us together with Ned’s boyfriend, with David, afterward, so we could do the funeral right. David’s funeral, too, when the time came, when his own folks wanted it done all wrong.” 

Astonishingly, the human smiled, then, a strange smile that made Gabriel’s eyes itch. “The first Pride after Ned died, I went to watch. Some guys I knew were yelling things at ‘em, so I shut ‘em up. It was like hearing them yell at my Ned, y’see. Yelling words like rocks. Mr. Fell was marching, and stopped to talk to me. Gave me a hug. Introduced me to a kid he was with, some poor kid who’d gotten thrown out for being the same person he’d always been, just like my Ned. So I gave him a hug and we both started crying and I knew, this was the only way, ever, I could hold my boy again. They were _all_ my boys. So I got myself a t-shirt that said ‘Free Dad Hugs.’ And every Pride since then, I’ve got no right to march and I know it, not after what I did, but I stand on that corner and I give out the free Dad hugs, anybody that needs one. I’ve been to meetings, I’ve done odd jobs for shelters, I’ve countersigned loans, and every Pride till I die, I don’t care if they have to carry me there on a stretcher, I’m gonna be there to give out all the hugs I should’ve given Ned. It’s not enough, but it’s what I can do. And _that’s_ who Mr. Fell is. He’s the one who taught me how to do what I could, _even after it was too late.”_

“That’s nice and all,” said Gabriel, “but he’s _still_ a traitor to Heaven.”

“Then _screw_ Heaven and its tough love bullshit,” said the human, turning away. “That do it?”

“Perfect,” said Crowley. “Thanks.”

The human walked away; but during its story more humans had arrived, venturing into the alley one at a time and in pairs, clustering, staring. Crowley beckoned. “Don’t be shy,” he said. “But one at a time, please.”

A tall blonde human walked up to the circle, staring in at Gabriel. “I remember you,” it said. “You’re _pornography guy_. You came barging in with some, some _thug,_ and I could see Mr. Fell was scared of you. I didn’t know what to do. You dragged him into the back room yelling about pornography, which anybody’d _know_ he doesn’t have in the shop. I almost called the cops but I didn’t know what to tell them; only, he was always so _sweet_ , and you were so _mean_ to him! I’d just moved in then, after my divorce, and he, I don’t know, he brought me a cup of tea and listened to me and, and even when I admitted Amy is my favorite March girl and I’m _glad_ she married Laurie, everybody else acts like that makes me a horrible person but he got it, and I, just, why would you be hateful to him?”

Gabriel ground his teeth. “You don’t understand the situation,” he said. “Aziraphale worked for me - ”

“Bullshit. He owns the bookshop. He’s _always_ owned the bookshop. _Everybody_ knows that.”

“ _The bookshop wasn’t his job_ ,” said Gabriel, wondering why he felt compelled to explain anything to this stupid creature. “He worked _for me_ , and he defied my will _constantly._ Consorting with the opposition behind my back, twisting his instructions, doing things his own way - being a _terrible_ employee.”

“Then you were a _crap_ boss.” 

The human walked away, but was quickly replaced by another human, scarred face and hands, clothes ragged and filthy. Gabriel got the first word in this time. “Let me out. I can reward you better than whatever Crowley’s paying you. I can do more for you than this pathetic Mr. Fell ever did. One motion of your foot, that’s all. Right here. And then, whatever reward you want.”

“Crowley’s not paying me,” said the human. “I don’t need your reward. I want to tell somebody my Mr. Fell story. It’s hard, sometimes, not talking about Mr. Fell.”

“You know, if someone asks everyone not to talk about him, it’s _probably_ because he’s up to no good.” 

“Mr. Fell doesn’t ask anything of us,” said the human. “We all know the Rules, is all. I didn’t when I first came here, but I learned fast. I came from a bunch with a different set of rules. _They_ talked about traitors, too. But here I am.” Something in his grin at that moment made Gabriel shudder. “My boss wanted to buy the bookshop. Cheap. You wouldn’t _believe_ what property values were doing back then. He sent a bunch of us to lean on him. We went in, we leaned. We were good at it, too. We’d gotten the boss a lot of property, cheap. I don’t know what went on with the other guys. We didn’t talk about it. But - he Looked at me. Like - I dunno, nobody else ever looked at me like that. Like he saw all the way through me, and he saw - _something_. Something that was _better_ than what I was doing. Than who I was being. And I - well. I don’t work for that boss, anymore. Everybody says, _you can’t quit that job, you leave that job in a pine box_ , but _I_ left. I work for myself. And I do Habitat for Humanity, just came from there, that’s why my clothes are such a mess. I have friends, I do good work, I do, I do _good._ And I - I ran into Mr. Fell one day, not even around here, I went to a Habitat thing in Wales and I ran into him. Looking the same as always, it’d been twenty years, he hadn’t changed a hair and he remembered me. My name, he _remembered_ , and he Looked at me and I felt like, like I’d grown up. Into the something better he’d seen. And I’ve been wanting to tell somebody. That’s all.”

He hurried away, but another human came up, and another, and another. Crowley stood in the doorway, doing something with his hands, braiding strands of power that flashed and glimmered as the dusk descended, something Gabriel couldn’t quite see for the humans passing in front of him. Humans with story after story after story. Trivial stories - Mr. Fell is a big tipper, their feet never hurt when Mr. Fell is in their restaurant, when they were a little girl he smiled at them, he let them use the exact book they needed for their dissertation and couldn’t find anywhere else, he loves their sushi and recommends their restaurant to everyone. Standard Guardian stories - he got them off drugs, he gave them a safe place to stay, he taught them to deal with an autistic child without abusing it, he introduced them to the lawyer who settled the divorce fairly, he deflected them from a life of crime or wrath, he talked them out of suicide, he knew them as female, as male, as neither, as both, when everyone else insisted on the wrong identity. Weird stories - the theater ghost respects Mr. Fell, touching the bookshop pillars brings good luck, the pigeons talk to him, they cut his hair and do his nails and feed him and he is _theirs_. 

The warmth and the radiance within the circle grew stronger with each story. It felt like being with Aziraphale. Like being within arm’s reach of something ludicrous and glorious that would never, ever, _ever_ belong to him. Like having a soap bubble between his hands that he could not crush, could not grasp, could not even touch.

The evening dimmed, and _still_ they came, and no matter what Gabriel said to them - they didn’t care. Not that Aziraphale’d betrayed Heaven to be with a demon, not that he could breathe hellfire, not that he’d lied or evaded his duty or exceeded his instructions or ignored what Gabriel wanted him to do. They only cared to talk about their Mr. Fell, and talk they did, loading him with story after story after story until he wanted to scream for mercy, and _still_ they came.

The streetlights came on, the traffic on the streets changed, Crowley’s hands wove over and under, and the last human departed. Gabriel tried not to slump against the wall of the circle, tried to make his voice hard and contemptuous rather than raw and desperate. “You know, any Guardian Angel on earth could generate similar stories,” he said to Crowley. 

“Ideally, sure,” said Crowley. “But _do_ they? And _could_ they do it on a miracle budget as tight as his always was? Would their charges sign up for an app to summon them to tell their stories? If _any_ other Guardian made themselves scarce for eleven years, would their charges still love them the way Aziraphale’s love him? Do you even know what your Guardians _do_ on a day-to-day basis? I bet you don’t. I bet you couldn’t tell me a single story about a single one of them. You never really _got_ the Guardian thing, did you? _You_ don’t protect. _You_ don’t relieve. _You_ don’t thwart. _You_ don’t even know the Sins and Virtues when you see them. Not his Love and Hope and Charity. Not your own Lust and Vanity and Wrath.”

“I can’t lust, you idiot.” Where the fuck was Sandalphon when he was really needed? “I never manifested the organs for it. I bet you’ve lured Aziraphale into that, though. Are you also the one responsible for his wall-to-wall Gluttony, or did he do that on his own? What about his Avarice about that shop full of material objects? I’ve been trying to lift him up for six thousand years, but he keeps choosing the weight that drags him down. Keeps choosing _you_.”

Crowley, hardened Tempter that he was, remained unruffled. “Tsk, to think of the Archangel Fucking Gabriel making the same mistake the humans do about a Sin! You don’t need _organs_ to Lust. You need to look at another being and want to turn them into something less than themselves to serve _your_ appetites. Like you did with Sandalphon. Appetite and enjoyment _aren’t_ Gluttony; gorging yourself beyond nourishment and joy, _is_. And loving and learning and preserving sure aren’t _Avarice._ You could’ve learned so much from Aziraphale, and the other angels under you, but you never bothered, did you? If you can’t control it, you’ll destroy it like the Wrathful sinner you are, and it drives you _mad_ that, six thousand years along, you still haven’t done _either_ to this one little pretty pesky _perfect_ angel.” The Serpent’s teeth shone sharp and white in the darkness of the doorway. 

Gabriel sighed. “What do you _want,_ Crowley? My people will be looking for me, and you won’t like what happens when they find out you’re the one holding me.”

“Almost done here. Believe me, I’m way more anxious to get back to my angel than your people are to have you back. Not but what I haven’t fantasized about this plenty of times. About what I’d do to you if I got hold of you.” Crowley emerged from the doorway at last, slithering round and round the trap. Gabriel tried not to turn to follow him; but the idea of having the Serpent of Eden at his back made his spine crawl too much. “But y’know, when you get right down to brass tacks - taking revenge on an abuser, punishing them for what they did - that tends to backfire. They know how to milk sympathy for their own hurts, as well as they know how to make the ones they hurt feel that they deserve what they get. And Aziraphale doesn’t like to hurt people. Thinks punishment does more harm than good.”

“He _would!_ Given that he merits punishment so richly himself.”

“So, nice as it’d be to curse you, to see to it that if you looked at him your _eyes_ would bleed, if you spoke of him your _mouth_ would bleed, if you heard his name your _ears_ would bleed, if you _thought_ of him you’d have a seizure -“ Gabriel felt the pressure of the curse build with each word, pressing against the wall of the trap; until it was suddenly gone. “But in the end, I couldn’t do it. What _you_ need are consequences, not punishment. What _he_ needs is justice, not revenge.”

“I guess you’d better leave me to God then, hadn’t you?”

“Ha, yeah, good one! God doesn’t even talk to Metatron anymore, does She? You know what I think She’s up to?”

“What you think stopped mattering when you Fell, demon!”

He might as well have been talking to one of the walls lining the alley. Crowley didn’t even pause. “I think God gave us all the things we need to work out our own destinies, and now She’s sitting back waiting to see what we make of them.” He twisted the shimmer of energy in his hands, making three loops, blue and black and white all plaited together. “Aziraphale and I have taught each other a lot of things over the centuries, you know. Now spring’s coming and the Channel’s a bit calmer, he’s going to teach me to sail.” His lazy grin twisted into a smirk. “I taught him to Curse, but you gave him the Rage he needs to power them, so I guess that’s a point to you? And he showed me how to make a good strong geas. This here?” He flicked the big loop over Gabriel’s head to close, warm and vibrant, around his throat, the two smaller loops sliding themselves over his wrists to bind them. “Truth geas. You’ll still be able to lie, not gonna mess with your free will, but your voice’ll change when you do it. Won’t take whoever’s listening long to learn the difference.”

Gabriel tugged the noose, supple and strong, all its threads of power so tightly plaited they made one thread. “I don’t need to lie to fulfill my purposes, Snake,” he said; and heard his voice thin and breathy and off-pitch. Not like his own voice, at all. 

“Suuuure you don’t.” The demon slithered around and around and around. “I don’t know how long it’ll take you to pick that apart. Quite awhile, I expect. I got the initial thread from Aziraphale, so the heart would be strong, but gentler than truth often is. And then I wrapped mine around it, because I don’t see why the truth that binds you should be forgivable. And then all those humans came by and added in their truths, the ones they think are all about Mr. Fell but are really about them, the true selves he’s always encouraged them to be. So I think it’ll be awhile before you hurt any more Guardians with any more lies. And as for your hands - good luck trying to smite anybody or anything in a false cause in the future.”

Gabriel tested the arrangement. The tethers between the loops did not restrict the motions of his hands. Nothing cut into the body’s flesh, no matter how he pulled. The noose was snug. Comfortable, even. Once he regained access to his sword, he’d slice through this geas with no problem. “You really think you can bind me?”

“Nope.” Crowley stopped slithering, took his sunglasses off, and smiled. “I think the Truth can, though. Also, you should know, any time you get within a mile of this circle? You’re coming back to it, and only _I_ can let you out. Well, me or Aziraphale, but he doesn’t want to see you so - it’s all on me.”

“Anybody could interrupt the circle.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. _Begone, Gabriel._ ”

The banishment sucked Gabriel up, through smog and cloud and ozone, to land in his luxurious rolling chair, which slid backwards from his momentum and stopped when it encountered the glass wall overlooking the Celestial City, parks and concert halls and skyscrapers and all. Gabriel took a moment to steady himself, to stretch out in the familiar pure atmosphere and steady white light of his office. He pushed the chair back to the desk with a small flex of will; shook out his wings with ease and took a soothing few minutes to preen their black-flecked snowy white feathers; drew his sword and lit its heavenly flame. All in order, then.

It would not do, however, for anyone to see him bound. That Serpent had some ego, thinking anything he could make would be more than a temporary inconvenience to the Archangel Gabriel! He held his left hand straight out ahead of him, stretching the barely-visible cord to its full extent, and drew the flaming blade across it.

He felt the burn and the throb deep in his being; but the thread did not cut.

Oh, well, so he’d have to saw a little...

He was still sawing away at it, weeping with frustration, when Sandalphon came in to report on his progress with Michael.

\---  
“Good evening!”

_“Arrgh!”_

“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Aziraphale, former Guardian of the Eastern Gate. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re Hastur, Duke of Hell?”

_“Don’t point that thing at me!”_

“I assure you, I’ve practiced a great deal, under Miss Pepper’s tutelage, and as long as my finger is _here_ rather than _here_ it’s in no danger of spraying holy water anywhere near you. You should also perhaps be aware that it takes very little time to bless the water in the mud and though it wouldn’t be as potent as normal holy water it could be distressing for you to stand in it, so I think if you stay over _there_ and I stay over _here_ we’ll _both_ be more comfortable.”

“Where’s that bastard Crowley? I smell him!“

“I believe what you’re ‘smelling’ is probably my wedding ring. We did a ritual over our rings, you see, so that each of us would always have some of the other’s power _on hand_ , so to speak. Yes, sorry, the wordplay is Crowley’s but I repeated it, so I must accept some responsibility. He’ll be along shortly. And he’ll be cross with me for speaking to you first, but once he shows up I expect things will quickly deteriorate and I wished to have a moment before that in which to express my condolences. I never met Duke Ligur, but it’s clear you and he were very close for a very long time, and though I can’t blame Crowley for the action he took, I also can’t help being sorry for your loss.”

“You’re _sorry._ For _my_ loss.”

“Yes. I am.”

“...You made him the holy water, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

 _Wheeze._ “I couldn’t _believe_ he’d done that. Who the Hell - _does that?_ Discorporation, sure, a little cursing, but - annihilation! _Who does that?”_

“I understand this may not loom very large in your thoughts, and I certainly don’t want to get into who deserved what, but, wasn’t the plan, ultimately, for Ligur to use his cursed knife to peel Crowley down to nothing, erasing him from the universe almost as thoroughly as holy water would?”

“Well, yeah, but - he’s a _traitor,_ isn’t he?”

“And Polikletus, what had _he_ done?”

“Who?”

“The Usher at Crowley’s trial. Little round beach ball of a demon. Crowley said you tested the holy water Michael brought in by dropping him into it. What had _he_ done, to deserve annihilation?”

“Oh, _that_ one. He was a handy size and I could reach him, that was all. We had to test it on somebody - couldn’t go around trusting angels.”

“So you blame Crowley bitterly for annihilating Ligur in self-defense, and yourself not at all for annihilating Polikletus for convenience.”

“I don’t know what you’re going on about. Ligur was a _Duke_. That demon was _nobody.”_

“I believe his friends feel differently.”

_“Demons don’t have friends!”_

“What would you call Ligur, then?”

“...I always called him Ligur. Look, _angel - Waah!_ Careful with that thing!”

“If I’m to be careful with this, I think it only fair that you remain where you are. Exactly where you are.”

“Look. I know you think that holy water makes you the boss here. But your old boss is here, too, and it won’t make _him_ flinch a bit. You may have got the drop on everybody at your trials, but we’re ready for you now. I’m still a Duke and Gabriel’s still an Archangel. Between us we can tear you apart.”

“I expect you could, _if_ Gabriel were here, _and_ you were both prepared, _and_ Crowley and I were not. But the humans have trapped him and Crowley has banished him, and between us, I believe, we’re reasonably well prepared, should _you_ try to attack us. But I find conversation is so much more productive, don’t you?”

_“Ahg!”_

“I’m sorry, was that uncomfortable? The ring always pulses a bit like that when he gets close. Dearest! We’re over here!”

“ _We?_ Angel, what are you playing at? I told you -“

_“Aaaaaahg!”_

_Fwoop._

_“Aziraphale!”_

“It’s all right, Crowley, don’t get into a pother! I was having a relatively pleasant conversation with him and then when he heard you he appears to have lost his nerve and teleported out. I’m afraid he’s not very brave, as Dukes of Hell go.”

“Yeah, cruelty’s more his jam. Though I’m not sure how brave _I_ am, faced with a water gun that size.”

“Oh, sorry, let me put it and the wings away - better?”

“Much. Newt and Anathema were almost done warding that stretch when I came through. If we don’t want to walk home tonight we’d better get moving.”

“Jolly good. Did you see the damage? Those holy swords are potentially a problem.”

“Naw, they’ve got all that recycled. I don’t think he’ll find it so easy to get through another time.”

“I hope he realizes what a bad idea it is, and there’s _not_ another time!”

“Me, too. Speaking of bad ideas - what were you _thinking,_ facing Hastur on your own?”

“I _wasn’t_ on my own! I had my trusty holy water gun, and the threat of _you_ looming at my back. ”

_“It’s not funny!”_

“It’s a little funny.”

“No, it’s really _not!_ Hastur is _bad news!”_

“I'm sorry, dearest. I only thought - if I understand what you’ve told me, he and Ligur had been together longer even than you and I have -“

“Much longer, given that we weren’t _allowed_ to be together.”

“Precisely. I wanted - I thought it was only appropriate to acknowledge that.”

“Oh, angel...he went and disappointed you, didn’t he?”

“I don’t - I’m not sure I had any hopes, exactly, but - I know demons _can_ form attachments, even apart from you, I’ve seen it multiple times now, and I thought, well, it couldn’t hurt. To say something. I knew you wouldn’t have the patience for it. Besides, if he was going to do anything that called for me to use the gun, I’d much rather have _that_ part over before you showed up.”

“Yes, but - angel, if he’d - _argh._ I get the point. But I could’ve told you, sympathy wouldn’t help. Not with this one. Hastur was plenty upset about Ligur melting, sure, but it wasn’t more than a minute later that I’d distracted him with the idea of the Dark Council promoting him over Princes to lead the Hordes of Hell. Not everybody has a heart to touch.”

“So it would appear. And, speaking of untouchable hearts - how did that go?”

“Like a dream. I lost count of how many people showed up. That bastard was sick to death of hearing about you, and if that geas isn’t strong enough to dull the edge of every blade in Heaven and take a thousand years to unpick, I’ll eat your holy water gun.”

“You’ll do nothing of the - _oops, Crowley_! Mind your step! I thought you could see in the dark!”

“I can, but why would I look at the ground when I can look at you?”

“Oh, you’re impossible! Let there be light.”

“ _Stop that!_ We’ll be visible from the roadway!”

“So? Light!”

 _“Dark!_ Things are unsettled enough in town after what happened at the police station!”

 _“Light!_ Nobody is looking!”

 _“Dark!_ That’s not the point!”

 _“Light!_ The point is, somebody has to take elementary safety precautions and it’s clearly not going to be you!”

“ _Dark!_ Well it damn sure won’t be you! Confronting Hastur without me! I’m surprised there weren’t crepes involved!”

 _“Light!_ I wasn’t confronting anybody, I only -“

_“Dark!”_

_“Light!”_

_“Dark!”_

_“Light!”_

_“Dark!”_

And the damp spring night flickered on and off peacefully in Hogback Wood.


	4. Repercussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When an enraged Sandalphon actually comes after him in broad daylight in the middle of Mayfair, Aziraphale is forced to improvise.

Aziraphale would try sleeping one of these nights. He would, indeed. He’d promised Crowley, and he _kept_ his promises. 

This one, however, had no time limit, and one shouldn’t rush these things. No doubt, if he chose the right night, he’d have good dreams and wake refreshed and would finally understand what Crowley saw in the process. If, however, he chose the wrong night, he risked having another bad experience, and spending another 4000 years avoiding sleep. Right now, he thought, the incidents of the Notacalypse were too vivid, as the memory of the Flood had been too vivid when he’d tried sleeping off his exhaustion from that, to risk it.

Meanwhile, it was pleasant, when Crowley slept, to sit beside him in a nightshirt, propped on pillows, reading and occasionally pausing to watch his husband sleep, stroke his hair, possibly bend down to kiss whatever part happened to be draped over Aziraphale, as some part always was. Crowley, unless exhausted, sprawled and squirmed in his sleep, and naturally gravitated toward warmth. If he had a nightmare, Aziraphale could easily detect it within a few seconds of the onset of distress, put down his book, and gather Crowley into his arms to bless and kiss and sing serenity back into him. 

Neither of them could be sure that, in the reverse situation, Crowley would be able to return the favor. He certainly wouldn’t be able to do so if they both slept at the same time. The strong possibility existed that a bad dream in one of them would infect the sleep of the other, leading to a potentially nasty feedback loop; so Aziraphale’s first sleep would be carefully planned and timed for a night when Crowley was both quiet enough to sit up next to him with his laptop and energetic enough not to doze off himself. Which, in the wake of the past eleven years of intense stress, was not likely to be any time soon.

So it was that, on this particular Mayfair dawn, Aziraphale was awake and alert, and Crowley had been asleep for two days. He should, at this point, be wakeable, as his sleeping jags had been getting shorter, but Aziraphale didn’t feel any need to interrupt him. He did, however, feel peckish, and that his Dorothy L. Sayers binge-read was ready for a break, when he closed _Gaudy Night_ and placed it face down top of on the “done” stack on the nightstand. The ending was so satisfactory, it would not do to disrupt the afterglow by launching straight into _Busman’s Honeymoon,_ much less the non-Wimseys still waiting to be read, and the day was dawning clear after a dreary spate of rain, and he was almost certain he could make a really nice porridge, this time, without any of it sticking to the bottom of the saucepan.

So he kissed Crowley, eased himself out from under him without disturbing him, and padded through the flat to the kitchen, reflecting on how often he kissed Crowley these days, and how much cozier it was here now than it had been that first strange night, and how the secret to porridge, really, was to _stir_ it, without getting distracted, or at least to make sure the heat wasn’t too high when the kettle sang and you stepped away to make the tea.

And honestly, he reflected, cleaning up with a finger snap afterward, it was well worth the tiny additional amount of miracle power necessary to get the black stuff off the bottom of the saucepan, in order to have an old-fashioned homemade porridge, with brown sugar and cream, of a morning. Some homely pleasures could not be bought; and with no miracle budget, he had yet to run into any reason to clean up the hard way if he didn’t happen to feel like it. He had been concerned, at first, that he and Crowley (who was not used to frugality) would be thrown back entirely on their personal reserves once cut off from Heaven and Hell; but in fact, they seemed to have nearly limitless resources. Miraculous power lay about them on every hand, and either no one noticed, or no one was brave enough to challenge them, when they drew upon it, regardless of how much they used, or what they used it for.

The sun was well up by now, promising a beautiful spring day out, and what Aziraphale really felt like doing was getting on with rebuilding their system at last. They’d been much too busy, since last August, helping Anathema and Newt with the design, testing, and implementation of the wards and traps for Tadfield and the cottage, and reinforcing the protections on the flat and the bookshop and the Bentley, to do more than think vaguely about the future; but a stronger, larger, better version of their old interlocked workings, tying into the smaller workings feeding off the M25, and of course into the M25 itself, was clearly the very first thing to do now that they were caught up. 

They had already stockpiled official city maps, plans, and geological surveys, as well as a number of proposed infrastructure plans that should be taken into account, in Crowley’s office; but they needed to update all their information on London’s psychic landscape. The bookshop anchored the leys that met at his crossroads, but he could tell by the strains on them that the powers of the land had shifted over the last century. What this might mean for the Mayfair property not even Crowley could guess; and then the economic, social, and spiritual changes human society had undergone had left their own mark. They would need to conduct a proper survey together; but this morning was a good opportunity for Aziraphale to get a feet-on-the-ground sense of what they were up against, so that when Crowley woke, refreshed and ready to work, they’d already have a good start.

With this in mind, Aziraphale dressed in his dear old coat and worn waistcoat, so comfortable and well-suited to urban work. The changes of the past few months had almost all been positive, but so many of them at once bade fair to upset his equilibrium - and Crowley’s, too, if he would admit it - so he would sooner do his old familiar work in the old familiar uniform, clinging to such stability as he could. With his tie straight and his watch wound and his familiar layers snug around him, he dropped a kiss onto Crowley’s cheek, and then another on his forehead.

He kissed Crowley a lot, lately. More than Crowley kissed him. Millennia of carefully curated habit, after all, could not be shaken off overnight, and where Aziraphale had known since Mesopotamia that any crumb of affection he dared to drop would be eagerly snatched up, Crowley had schooled himself to wait permission even to do the things he sensed Aziraphale wanting him to do. Only time and care and practice would make him comfortable enough to take advantage of the new reality consistently.

For now, Aziraphale whispered “The answer’s always yes, now, dearest,” into his husband’s ear, tucked the duvet close around him, left a note on the mirror, and nearly walked out without the mobile telephone Crowley had given him. He remembered at the threshold, however, and turned back to collect it from the charger in the lounge, making sure it was powered up and turned on, before stepping out, locking the door behind him, checking the wards, and summoning the lift. 

Despite the earliness of the hour, he only made it down one floor before the lift stopped, at which point Lady Forrester got on, taking her time about it while Aziraphale held the door. “Good morning!” He said. “You’re up early.”

“Nobody to lie in bed for,” said Lady Forrester, whom Crowley described, with approval, as “a terrible old dragon lady,” the first and richest tenant of the current incarnation of his building, who had spent her first year in residence trying to punish him for refusing to yield the penthouse to her. “Can’t imagine why you’re up when Anthony’s still abed!”

“Oh, he’s a champion sleeper! I can’t keep up with him, and it seems a pity to waste such a beautiful morning indoors, when he’s not awake to waste it with.” The lift doors closed. Lady Forrester braced herself with her stick as downward progress resumed, and his practiced eye spotted a tremor that she was determined to conceal. “Are you giving Miss Hutton the slip?”

“Miss Hutton is no longer with me.” She sniffed in a particular way that no one in Soho ever sniffed, not being old enough, rich enough, or titled enough. “I sacked her yesterday, the tyrant! The agency will be sending over people to interview later, but for now I’ve no one to get my breakfast for me, and must walk to the Connaught or go hungry.”

This was not surprising, as Lady Forrester had a high turn-over in carers; six months, Crowley said, was the longest she’d ever had one, and the three days her unmarried daughter had tried to fill the position had been the highest drama he’d seen in a century. The Connaught was a longer walk than someone with that tremor should probably undertake, but Aziraphale did not think she would take well to his suggesting a taxi, or pointing out that the restaurant on the ground floor of the building would be open in half an hour. “How tedious,” he said instead. “You have the most dreadful luck with your help.”

This was enough for her to start in on Miss Hutton’s many iniquities (among which a determination to enforce a doctor-mandated diet loomed large; though it was true enough that she also lacked tact), a topic which carried them down to the lobby and halfway down the block without her questioning whether they were in fact going in the same direction; and then it was child’s play to keep prompting her to lay down the law upon a new subject, and offer her an unobtrusive steadying hand when needed, without her being obliged to notice; nor did she notice that the tremor lessened rather than worsening as they walked. Traffic picked up as the business day prepared to begin, and she was explaining the iniquity of modern scooters when he felt a familiar shift in the air, making his ears chime.

Aziraphale thrust his hand into the pocket where he kept the mobile telephone as Sandalphon appeared, forcing aside a small man walking a large dog, not five yards ahead, and immediately drew his sword and spread his wings, causing a scooter to veer into a Mini, the Mini to veer onto the sidewalk, and a bus to stop far more rapidly than buses are designed to stop.

The pandemonium that broke out on the street was as nothing to the pandemonium in Aziraphale’s head. This was exactly the kind of situation which he did _not_ handle well! And yet, as smoothly as if he were not panicking at all, with one hand he snapped open every lock on every building that might provide any cover from whatever disaster he couldn’t prevent here, and with the other he passed the phone to Lady Forrester, Commanding, with a blessing that should enable her to obey: “Call Crowley; it’s button one. Under cover, now. _Run_!”

“I haven’t run in forty years,” she retorted, to his back as he stepped forward. _Then_ she ran.

At eye contact, Sandalphon roared: “ _Aziraphale!_ It’s about time you came out from that snake’s protection, you coward!”

“This is not the place for smiting, Sandalphon.” Aziraphale braced one foot on a minor aerial ley. “I will _not_ stand by and watch you do it this time, whether you’re authorized or not!”

 _“Authorized!”_ Sandalphon screamed, as if the word were an obscenity, and charged, sword blazing. All the potential pillars of salt in the vicinity who had not already fled, did so; but that bus was much too close.

Aziraphale and Crowley had discussed what he was about to do more than once; but he had never attempted it. If he failed – he could already smell the reek of Sodom and Gomorrah - _he must not fail,_ that was all, and so he drew in as much power from the ley and the atmosphere as he could, swayed aside at the last moment, reached out his off-hand to grasp Sandalphon’s wrist, and with the other, snapped with all his might.

Sandalphon’s weight and momentum carried him past Aziraphale, who rotated rather than letting himself be driven backward, and then let go as Sandalphon stumbled, his feet driven deep into the sand that stretched in silent dunes all around them. “What the _fuck_ did you just _do?_ ” He demanded, struggling for his footing.

Aziraphale shook out his wings in a Pride rainbow of colors, because he _could_ , because Heaven did _not_ dictate his appearance any more. “I protected my charges,” he said, hoping his voice revealed no hint of the power drain of anchoring them to the Sands of Time. “I’m better at it now than I was in Sodom. If _you_ insist on doing this, _I_ insist on doing it somewhere no one else can get hurt.”

“Oh, right, your precious charges,” Sandalphon sneered, his gold teeth glinting with swordflame. “Don’t want them to see you get your arse kicked, do you? Any more than you want to answer for what you did to Gabriel! But nobody cares what you want, and whether I discorporate you here or in the middle of London, it’s all the same to me.” He gave up on sound footing in the sand, and raised himself into the air in a way his shrikelike wings had never been designed to do. His squat body brimmed over with miracle power, more than he should, by his rank, have contained; but no doubt, in his position, he had full access to as much as Gabriel wished him to have. “Draw, damn you!”

“I gave my sword away six thousand years ago,” Aziraphale said, and didn’t feel nervous, because at this point, what difference did it make? He probably was about to discorporate again and then Crowley would probably do something brave and foolish and breathtaking, but right here and now, he was flightless and unarmed against a flighted, armed, and raging Sandalphon, and there simply wasn’t any _point_ in being afraid. Not with no one around to fear _for_. “I’ve never _needed_ a sword.”

Sandalphon grinned at him like a giant lorry bearing down upon a parked Bentley. “Well, you need one now!”

Aziraphale waited till he felt the heat of the sword, stepped aside, and snapped. Momentum drove Sandalphon somersaulting past him into the sand. The quenched sword writhed out of his hand, then slithered, a sand-hued serpent, into the dunes. “You know, I don’t think I do,” Aziraphale said, and pounced.

Wrestling Sandalphon was different from wrestling a human. The wings, for instance, changed all the holds in fundamental ways that muscle memory couldn’t compensate for, requiring him to reinvent them on the fly. Sandalphon was also much stronger than a human, and regularly practiced with other angels, whereas Aziraphale only had experience with violent humans. Sandalphon was fast, and fully intended to damage Aziraphale and force him to stay damaged, leaving him no time to heal himself. He kept trying to turn the contest into a bareknuckle boxing match, at close quarters, or a miracle duel, when he used his flight to gain distance.

On the other hand, Aziraphale need not take care not to grip Sandalphon too hard and hurt him, nor consider collateral damage, nor refrain from miracle use. The miracle use, in particular, turned out to be a considerable advantage. Sandalphon was a messy caster, and his locus of power was not his hands, but his fists. Flares of wasted power telegraphed his every move, while Aziraphale’s hard-learned efficiency could counter him with barely any power at all (and a good thing, too, given the effort of holding them there). He focused on defense, letting his opponent spend his resources while studying his moves. Such time as existed here was on Aziraphale’s side.

When Sandalphon wore down to his personal reserves at last, Aziraphale drew on the aerial energy he’d absorbed from the ley before leaving earth to generate a strong downdraft to drive his opponent into a dune. Sandalphon clambered to his feet and made a visible attempt to suck in more power. None arrived; good. They were as cut off from Earth’s energies here as Aziraphale had hoped they would be.

Sandalphon had been in a hot rage when he first appeared; by now he was incandescent, and came in like a battering ram. Aziraphale seized him by both wrists, absorbed a headbutt with his nose, captured both his opponents wings in his own, and said (working harder than usual to sound annoyingly prim, due to the nose breaking), as he forced Sandalphon’s arm’s backward and enfolded him in a strict embrace: “You need to calm down, my boy. You’re wearing yourself out to no purpose.”

“You...are _not.._.stronger...than...me,” protested Sandalphon, through clenched teeth. “You’re _soft!_ This is a...star-rated...body...Gabriel...ordered...it...special...for me!”

“Yes, you _are_ much stronger than the last time you assaulted me and I chose not to fight back,” Aziraphale acknowledged, “but I don’t think, if you’ll excuse a personal observation, that you’re any more _comfortable._ And that really is frightfully important.” He applied leverage, folding Sandalphon’s wings inexorably closed, with both sets of arms on top. “My own body has been worn continuously for over 6,000 years, torn apart by the stresses of Heaven, then put together anew by the power of Hell on Earth, guided solely by my memory of it. It _is_ soft, wonderfully so, and durable, and cozy. I know _exactly_ what I can ask of it, and it knows _exactly_ how to accomplish whatever I ask. I’m not sure anyone, least of all _you_ , can take it from me against my will. I’m afraid your boss sent you on a fool’s errand this time.”

“Gabriel’s not giving orders,” growled Sandalphon, the top of his head grinding into Aziraphale’s shoulder as he strove to push off from it and break the hold. “Gabriel’s not even talking! I need you to answer for your crimes and _unbind his voice_!”

“Oh, so he intends to get around a truth geas by refusing to speak? I suppose that might work, if nobody who understands geases gets too close a look. Crowley’s work is always straightforward and elegant, though. Anybody who knows their stuff at all should be able to tell what it’s for at a glance. Taking it apart, however, is another matter. He warranties it for a thousand years, and I believe him.”

“You can’t fool me with that crap.” Sandalphon sounded ragged and hoarse. His corporation radiated heat like a furnace. “Everybody else thinks Crowley calls your tune, but I’ve known you a long, long time! You’re the snake charmer that makes the Serpent of Eden dance. That’s _your_ geas, it _reeks_ of you, you can take it off him and I -“ his personal reserve flared - “ _I will make you do it!”_ He glowed white.

The next few moments were not unlike the time Aziraphale’d channeled Hylochiel’s unruly bombs, absorbing Sandalphon’s exploding power into his hands, refusing to allow it to explode; but he could not assimilate another angel’s reserve, and the Sands of Time had no sun to channel this force into. Awkward; until he realized that if he sent the power _dow_ n his spine rather than _up_ he could feed it into the anchor at his feet, strengthening it without significant cost to himself. Yes, that was satisfactory; and now Sandalphon’s struggles had them both kneeling in the sand, Aziraphale at his back with his wings curled around them, Sandalphon’s wings trapped between their two bodies as Aziraphale held him in a full Nelson, Sandalphon’s legs pinned beneath Aziraphale’s knees, his feet too mired in sand to provide leverage; whereas Aziraphale’s anchor provided him with plenty of stability. 

“That’s not going to happen,” Aziraphale explained. “Nobody has authority any more to make either of us destroy the other’s work. I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but the geas would never have been cast if your boss hadn’t come after humans under our protection. My husband chose to bind him to truth, not to silence. If he would rather remain silent than speak honestly that is unfortunate, but that’s his choice. Choice is important to us, as it ought to be to you. Nobody’s dancing to anybody’s tune, here. That’s not how marriage works, and it’s not how justice works, either.”

Sandalphon released a string of invective.

Aziraphale sighed. Time shouldn’t be passing back in London, but subjectively he’d been contending with Sandalphon for longer than he’d ever been in his company before, and that company was wearing even without overt conflict. “You should be aware that I can hold this position for a very long time if I need to. You have wasted the last of your miraculous power and are growing tired physically. You’re _beaten._ So. Will you pledge your word to go leave us and ours alone in future?”

“Fuck off,” said Sandalphon. “You think I won’t discorporate for Gabriel?”

“I’m not going to discorporate you!”

“And I’m not going to surrender to a _crip!”_

Aziraphale felt his temper burn like a sword, but only let the cold steel part of it into his voice. “It occurs to me that I could easily break your spine, apply a geas to you similar to the one you applied to me two hundred years ago, return us both to Earth, and leave you to learn exactly how _little_ crippled I am, and how _much_ respect those genuinely living in a world maladapted to their abilities are due.”

“You think there’s any line I’ll draw? You think Gabriel won’t come for me? Do whatever you want!”

For a moment, Aziraphale considered the possibilities. _Would_ Gabriel come for Sandalphon? How much did six thousand years of faithful service weigh against perceived risk to himself and the diminution of worth now his undefeated dog had been bested? And didn’t the vicious dog _deserve_ some helplessness, for Sodom and Gomorrah?

Oh, _deserve._ That useless word!

“No, on the whole, I’d rather not be the person who did that, going forward,” Aziraphale said. “I gave my sword away, in Eden, because I wanted to be a soft person; a merciful person; a Guardian, in fact. And I’ve made that same choice repeatedly every day since then, with one serious lapse that I cringe to think of. At least that time, the lapse was a misguided attempt to serve a greater good. I prefer not to let the likes of you tempt me into another such lapse for a lesser cause.”

“And I _prefer_ not to surrender to the likes of _you!_ ”

“Well, then, we seem to be at an impasse. Let me think.”

In reply, Sandalphon made a valiant attempt to break his hold.

“This is not how I wanted to spend today,” sighed Aziraphale. He could feel his face swelling around the broken nose. If he didn’t heal that mess soon, he’d have two black eyes as well as the speech problem. “None of the geases I carry about with me are suitable to the occasion. I suppose I could put you to sleep, but I’ve not much hope of you achieving understanding through any dream prompt I could give you. A curse would only be another perceived grievance to nurse.” This whole process felt familiar, apart from the wings straining against his chest. If Sandalphon had been a violent human - “Oh! I know! There’s an operation called ‘opening the heart.’ It renders the subject more vulnerable to softer influences and allows a closer look at the soul. I’ve never done it on an angel, but there’s no obvious reason why it shouldn’t have a similar result. Not all reasons are obvious, however, so you must let me know if it hurts. The process should not cause suffering.”

“Do your worst!”

“No, thank you, I always prefer to do my best. Here we go -“ He turned the full Nelson into a half Nelson, freeing one hand to draw a line, like pulling an invisible zipper, down Sandalphon’s chest as he struggled to take advantage of the change in hold.

Sandalphon stopped struggling.

Aziraphale stopped breathing, gazing into the abyss.

Sandalphon started screaming. _“Gabriel!”_

Limp and empty and screaming his master’s name, Sandalphon made no resistance as Aziraphale scrambled to undo the operation, but he could not come to grips with the void he had uncovered, could not mend or hide a hollow self once opened to the air. He strove to pour in love and compassion, as he had poured them effortlessly into humans reduced to ghosts of themselves by abuse or trauma; but for this being who had ground all the love Aziraphale had tried to feel for him into salt and ashes, the best emotion he could muster was horror.

Aziraphale released his hold and rolled the screaming angel over, searching for - he knew not what, anything, some stub of soul, some independent purpose, some fragile vestige of who Sandalphon had been before he submitted to being Gabriel’s dog; but there was nothing, his very devotion a negation of himself, and he would not stop screaming, like a baby crying in a rubbish bin, like a suicide caught between the apex of the bridge and the water below, like burning buildings collapsing without end in the cities of the plain.

“Sandalphon!” The cold hard eyes were blank and empty, the face slack, the mouth open and round and screaming. Aziraphale slapped him. It made no difference. He snapped his fingers for silence. The sound still burned the air.

This was _not_ a time to panic, this was _not_ about him, this was about another being who was in his care, a being who was suffering, who had _always_ suffered, who had embraced his suffering as if it were his purpose. He changed his voice; he changed his eyes; he took Sandalphon’s face between his hands and placed their foreheads together and Commanded him, in an American voice backed up by violet eyes: “Sandalphon! Take us to the infirmary! Now!”

He abandoned the anchor holding them to the Sands, Sandalphon’s wings twitched in obedience to his master’s voice, and they were in Heaven’s infirmary.

Sandalphon kept screaming.

Aziraphale dropped his transformation from his face and pulled his wings in, looking around at the bright sweet-smelling room where they had landed, at angels fluttering in consternation, at Raphael striding toward them, brilliant in green, demanding: “What happened to him?”

“He used up all his power and was physically restrained but wouldn’t surrender, so I performed an opening of the heart and - this is what was there!” Aziraphale backed out of her way as she bent over Sandalphon. “If a human had a similar void I’d pour Love in, but -“

“But this is _Sandalphon_ ,” said Raphael, saying his name as only someone who knew and disliked him could say it, “can’t give a patient what isn’t in the dispensary.” She passed her hand over him, from foot to head, and he fell silent, but his gaze remained glassy and fixed, random individual muscles twitching under sweat-sheened skin. Fine sand rained down from his clothes as she scooped him up and placed him on a gurney. “Onayapheton! Zazay! With me! Teoskael, see to this one’s nose. You, nose, don’t go anywhere, I may have questions.” And off she went, after the gurney, into an adjacent room, leaving Aziraphale the cynosure of a dozen sets of eyes. He stood, brushing sand off his trousers, and smiled apologetically. 

Teoskael, a genderless angel whom Peter Jackson would have hired to play a Tolkien elf in a hot second, approached him nervously. “Sir? If you’ll, um -“

“She’s stuck you with the awkward job, hasn’t she, my dear?” Aziraphale said. “I’m perfectly capable of fixing my own face, thank you, and I’ll be happy to clean this mess up - nasty stuff, sand, gets everywhere! You needn’t trouble yourselves.” _Snap!_ The beautiful green and gold tile floor was clean again. “I promise not to leave before she asks her questions.” _Unless I need to; what’s happening in London?_ “Don’t mind me.”

“She told me to see to your nose, so I must see to your nose.” Teoska sounded scared, but determined. “If you could just, just step this way and sit here -“

“Very well, I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble on my account.” Aziraphale allowed himself to be guided to a quiet bay, noting exits and entrances and arrangements of furniture as he did. He might have to leave in a hurry. Probably would, in fact. At least it did not seem to be a busy day in the infirmary. The other angels resumed their ministering, or their submitting to ministration, as appropriate, darting glances toward him and murmuring to each other, in something other than the brisk matter-of-fact tones of medical consultation. Teoskael tended his nose and the peripheral damage with slim cool hands and efficient use of power. Something about them was familiar, and he felt his way back along his lines of memory. 

“You’re, you’re him, aren’t you?” They asked. “Aziraphale? The Lost Guardian?”

“I’m hardly lost, my dear,” Aziraphale replied. “At least, no one seems to have any trouble finding me, more’s the pity! But yes, my name is Aziraphale, and I am a Guardian, though I’ve gone freelance now, which I suppose is what they mean by _lost_. I believe you’ve tended me before. A very long time ago now, the only previous time I was here, after the War. You were only in training, then, and I hadn’t been issued a body yet, but I remember you assisting Raphael. You were very kind.” 

They looked at him, in a different way than should have been necessary to repair his face, and flushed lavender. “You were injured holding the Hall of Records by yourself,” they said. “I hadn’t realized...I’d thought you were in the Host.”

“Not for long! Only long enough to be Guardian of the Eastern Gate in Eden, and then I was invalided out and went into Earthly Affairs.” It dawned on him that, outside of his personal acquaintance, relatively few angels knew anything more about him than Gabriel had put into press releases, and wiggled with glee at the thought of what this meant. “Do you know, apart from the Quartermaster when he tried to prevent me from resuming my duty on earth, I don’t think I’ve exchanged a dozen words with anyone from outside Earthly Affairs and the Guardian Service in six thousand years? You must catch me up on the gossip!”

He could have fixed his own nose much faster than Teoskael did, but since he could hardly in good conscience leave before answering Raphael’s questions that didn’t matter. The process was not much different, when you came down to it, from a haircut and manicure, and putting his attendant at ease was no harder than relaxing a new barber awestruck at having to deal with the mysterious Mr. Fell for the first time. He didn’t bother to shield his voice from penetrating to all the ears stretching to hear him from the other bays, either - let Gabriel try to make him into a bogeyman, when he steadfastly refused the role! If there was one thing he _knew_ how to do, it was to appear harmless!

Aziraphale was checking the results of Teoskael’s work in the mirror and tweaking the philtrum (“Oh, not at all, my dear, you couldn’t be expected to get all the details exactly right, not on a face you’d never seen before. These old models, you may remember, are easy to fiddle with, though this is nothing to what my husband can do.”) when Raphael returned. Since Eden, she’d trimmed her hair into an attractive butch cut, and she wore a short-sleeved trouser suit instead of robes, but she was still Raphael, embracing vibrant living greens where Earthly Affairs constrained itself to neutrals. She looked beautiful, and strong, and kind; and all the epidemics he had ever been forbidden to stem had grown from her designs - smallpox, influenza, cholera, bubonic plague, AIDS.

“Well, he’s stable, for now, anyhow,” she said. “Whew! I haven’t seen a mess like that before, and never hope to again. I’m not sure what to do next, frankly. It should be fascinating to figure it out! Tell me about this _opening the heart_ business. A human procedure, is it?”

“No, no, it’s a Guardian procedure, for _use_ on humans. I’ve been using it, oh, good lord, almost the whole 6000 years, and never had a reaction like that, or uncovered anything remotely as bad. But then I’d never used it on an angel before, or any entity who could have been so, so used for so long.”

“Hm. What condition calls for it, and what’s the usual response?”

“It varies, but generally speaking, if faced with a human determined to create a problem, you open them up, get a look at what’s pressuring them to sin, pour in some Love, close them up again, and proceed to influence them based on what you saw. There’s always been something to work with, before, and I’ve never had trouble closing, either.”

“All right, but what _happens_?” Raphael crossed her arms and leaned against the equipment counter. Teoskael, not having been dismissed, hovered.

Aziraphale resisted the urge to clasp his hands behind his back. “Oh! Well, let’s see. Supposing, yes, supposing a criminal organization has decided that the bookshop is a good candidate for, oh, being bought out, or made into a front for, for whatever, or even for paying what they call protection money, but whatever it is, the usual procedure is to send in a handful, anywhere from three to a half dozen, people accustomed to bringing people into line through intimidation. Usually a mix of experienced enforcers and some, some _rookies_ , who are supposed to learn the ropes. So they’ll be poking about the shop, deliberately damaging or threatening to damage things, while the spokesman talks about what a shame it would be if the place caught fire.”

Raphael looked politely impatient; Teoskael looked as if they were hearing a ghost story. Aziraphale, warming to his subject, found his hands moving, and did not restrain them. “The most efficient response to this is to be outwardly courteous and unaffected while you go open each of them up in turn, under pretense of protecting the stock or offering them tea or whatever. Most humans have only vestigial psychic senses and don’t notice the procedure. And perhaps in the spokesman you’ll see a lot of Pride, and Wrath, and Avarice, and perhaps in the rookies you’ll find of Vanity and Wrath - there’s almost always either Wrath or Avarice in a criminal - and in mob thugs you’ll always see a lot of fear, of what will happen to them if they don’t do the job, or what could happen to them without the support of the organization, or whatnot.”

Raphael nodded. Teoskael appeared fascinated. 

“But you’ll also see their Virtues, usually Love of some sort, and the injuries they’ve suffered, the insecurities, and the loneliness, and the hopelessness, that have led them to where they are now. Once you have the lay of the land, so to speak, you may find that you can pour in some Love, or Hope, or Courage, or apply a few blessings, and lead the conversation down avenues that allow them to see new possibilities they hadn’t considered before. Or, for the hardest cases, I might need to place a small curse, or give them a slight glimpse of my true form - eyes are _so_ effective on those types, the idea of their sins being observed disturbs them greatly. And then when I’m done I close them up and send them on their way - they’re ready enough to be sent, by then - and some come back looking for help, but otherwise I never see them again, because half of them find a way to quit the criminal life and the other half are too terrified to return. After a mob boss has seen this happen two or three times, he usually decides that the warnings to leave Mr. Fell’s bookshop alone aren’t quite the nonsense he thought they were, and stops sending them.”

Raphael looked a bit dazed. “And you thought this would work on Sandalphon because -?”

“Because Sandalphon, if he were human, would be _exactly_ the kind of person who would be sent to lean on small businessmen. Besides, I didn’t know what else to do. He’d shown up, with his flaming sword out, in the middle of London, and I had to take us to the Sands of Time to be sure he wouldn’t smite my charges. I had him down but he wouldn’t surrender and I thought, _well, I should at least get an idea of what I’ve got to work with._ Only - as you saw - there _wasn’t_ anything. I’ve seen something less drastic in humans who grew up in abusive situations and had never developed a sense of themselves as moral or spiritual beings, but -“ He spread his hands helplessly. “That’s like cutting open a potato with a bit of black rot deep inside, while _this_ was like cutting open a potato skin and finding that the inside had rotted completely away. If I’d known - I suppose I could have guessed Gabriel’d done something of the sort - but -”

“You’re sure it was Gabriel?” Raphael interrupted.

“Who else could it be? As far as I know Gabriel’s the only one he’s been close to, or answered to, since going into Earthly Affairs, and I can’t imagine my former boss letting anyone else misuse his personal assistant, but of course I’m completely out of date on what goes on here. His screams were for Gabriel. The only response I could get, once I opened him up, came when I imitated Gabriel and ordered him to bring us here. I can tell you, for a fact, that prolonged abuse is always at the root of the similar, but less extensive, voids I’ve found in humans. Removal from abusive elements, and a prolonged course of kindness and Love, with opportunities for Growth, is the only permanent cure, and the scars will always remain.”

“I see. But he was able to teleport in this condition?”

“I believe it was a conditioned reflex, responding to his master’s voice.”

“Bit of a risk, making him teleport you both, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid so. But releasing the anchor holding us in the Sands would have taken us straight back to London. The only way to bring him here was for him to bring us.”

“Because -?“ She peered at him in her abstractedly focused way - “I know you, don’t I?”

“He’s the Lost Guardian, sir!” Teoskael supplied. “The one who stopped the Second War.”

“The _humans_ stopped the war,” Aziraphale corrected them. “My husband and I assisted to the best of our ability, and will again any time they need us. Getting Sandalphon to teleport was the only way to get him here, Raphael. I have a pinion. I _can’t_ fly or teleport. You examined it once, shortly after I got it. In Eden.”

Her face cleared. “Oh, you’re _that_ one! Massive trauma to the femur, a pinion, and now the nose - you’re as good at avoiding injury as you are at organizing notes. I could have used you on the dis-ease project, had been going to ask to keep you, but Gabe snatched you up before I could.”

“I’m glad you didn’t get the chance! I hate to think I had any hand in inflicting all that suffering on the humans. You made disease too hard!”

“So you said repeatedly at the time.” Raphael was still peering at him. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“Nothing material.” This had gone on long enough. “I appreciate the assistance with the nose, but I’m perfectly capable of looking after my own injuries and my husband will be out of his mind with worry. If there are no more questions about Sandalphon I really must be going.”

“Oh? Know your way out from here, do you? This isn’t the same infirmary we had after the War, you know.”

Oh. Dear. “I’m sure I can manage.” Oh yes, here came the old familiar panic! “Does anyone have a communications device able to contact a human telephone?”

“I don’t think so. Agents on Earth can call us, in an emergency, but I’ve never tried to do it in reverse.”

By now, assuming time had resumed in London when he released his anchor, Crowley should have been awakened by Mrs. Forrester’s call and would have had plenty of time to get into a terrible state. “Do you mind if I borrow a device and try?”

“You can borrow mine?” Teoskael looked at Raphael, who shrugged, before handing the device to Aziraphale. It seemed to be a featureless white slab, and even after they showed him how it worked, nothing he did would get through to either of Crowley’s numbers, or to Hylochiel’s, or the bookshop’s, or Anathema’s, or Madame Tracy’s. As he struggled with the device, and against rising panic, and his wedding ring warmed significantly, Teoskael said to Raphael, without conviction: “We’re, sir, we’re supposed to notify Earthly Affairs, if we see the Lost Guardian.” 

“We are? You know I don’t read Gabe’s memos. He’s always on about something. Has anyone done that?”

“I don’t think so? I haven’t. I only just thought about it. He’s, um, he’s supposed to be considered dangerous? No contact?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Too late for that, I’m afraid. Nor do I see any reason for the Infirmary to take orders from Earthly Affairs!” He handed the device back to Teoskael. “Thank you, dear, it appears to be hopeless. I _must_ leave.” He moved for the door, but Raphael stepped into his path. He drew himself up as tall as he could get. “Sir. If I’m as dangerous as all that it would be wise to cooperate with me!”

“I’m an Archangel,” said Raphael as an alarm went off, madly clamoring bells, and Aziraphale’s ring pulsed with Crowley’s nearness and distress. “I’m pretty dangerous myself.”

“Excuse me, but I’m 100% of the Serpent of Eden’s impulse control, and it appears he has been detected in Heaven, so I need to _go_.” Aziraphale picked her up, set her aside, and charged through the ward, following the pull of his ring and the echoes of consternation all around.

Running had never been his strong suit, but the situation called for it, with an unknown number of infirmarians at his heels and Crowley somewhere ahead and slightly down in the coldly glaring white halls. Emerging onto a mezzanine over an atrium, he caught the beloved aura, then a flash of black ricocheting off a glass wall; then a flare of brilliant orange light and the dearest voice in the world hissing and crackling like a downed electric wire: “Back off, you bassstardsss, don’t think I won’t use thisss! I know he’sss here, let him go! Aziraphaaaaale! Sssssaaaandalphoon! I’ll take every hurt he has out of your worthlessss hide!”

Two floors below, half-serpented, fangs out, aura at full extent and magnified, tossing a ball of hellfire in his claws, black wings spread wide between the half circle of security angels and Hylochiel, who pressed against the wall clutching a large handbag. “Dearest!” Aziraphale ran to the railing. “I’m all right, Crowley, put that nonsense away! I’m coming!” Too many security angels, one of them recognizable from the kidnaping in the park, if he put the hellfire away too soon they’d pounce - stairs over there - too far - Aziraphale burst his wings out, shoving back whoever was trying to grab him from behind as he made the necessary calculations, summoned moving air into the stillness, hopped onto the rail of the mezzanine, and jumped.

A graceful glide it was _not_ , wobbling badly on his pinion, but the wings didn’t have to bear him up, only slow his fall, and he had an excellent view of Crowley’s face transforming from a vicious snarl to a transcendent relieved grin to a gleeful maw that swallowed down the ball of hellfire as the security angels stared and dithered. Aziraphale landed clumsily, batting them aside with his rainbow-shimmering wings, to hurl himself at Crowley, who staggered, laughing, under his weight. “You _idiot_!” Aziraphale scolded. “What were you _thinking?”_

Hylochiel threw her arms around Crowley from behind; twitched her wings; and they were at the foot of the London ladder, in the lobby, hauling in their wings and running for the street door, alarms still ringing all around them. 

It was still early morning in London, but already the traffic wardens were out and about, in this case arguing with Alaudiel, who stood next to the crookedly-parked and still-running Bentley. When she saw them, she threw open all the doors with a gesture and jumped into the back. The warden’s notebook burst into flame. Aziraphale waved to him apologetically as they dashed past him to the car. “So sorry! Out of your way in a tick! It’s an emergency!” The doors barely closed before they were roaring off down the street to the tune of “Keep Yourself Alive.” 

“Where?” Crowley asked, looking entirely himself again.

“I don’t know! Are they following us?”

“No,” said Alaudiel, kneeling in the back seat to look out the rear window.

“I don’t think they will, after _that_ display,” said Hylochiel. “What’s the _matter_ with you? I told you to stay in my purse!”

“Welcome to my life,” said Aziraphale. “Dearest, is Lady Forrester all right?”

“Ooh, good point. I told her to go to my flat, and she ought to be okay there, but -“

“Best be sure. _Watch the road!_ You smuggled him in, in snake form? That’s very clever.”

“It _would_ have been if they hadn’t put demon-detection alarms in all the lifts and not told anybody.”

“That’s new,” said Crowley. “Must’ve done it since the executions, or Legion wouldn’t have been able to bring the hellfire up.”

 _And they would have detected you in my body,_ Aziraphale thought, ichor running cold, but he wasn’t about to say that in front of Hylochiel and Alaudiel. “Thank you girls so much! This is a tremendous risk you’ve run and you shouldn’t have done it, but -“

“ _But_ nothing,” said Hylochiel. “I’m just glad Crowley called me instead of charging in alone. Alaudiel and I were going to go in to look for you, assuming Sandalphon would have taken you straight to Gabriel’s office, but there wasn’t any holding him and as it turned out I needed him to guide me - where _were_ you? Was that _Raphael_ trying to stop you from jumping? I couldn’t see properly, hiding behind Crowley’s wings - “

“Is _anybody_ going to tell me what happened?” Alaudiel demanded.

Crowley laughed, taking a corner much too fast and weaving around a Hummer stretch limo, three tires on which coincidentally blew at the same time. “Aziraphale was _glorious_ , that’s what happened! Where _were_ you, angel? You blipped out of existence, it woke me up, and then Mrs. Forrester called with your ringtone and told me Sandalphon had carried you off!”

“I’m _sorry!_ He was about to start smiting! So the only thing I could think of was, to try take him to the Sands of Time to have it out with no collateral damage. I didn’t expect it to work!”

“Ha! _That’s_ my angel! I knew it was in you, I _knew_ it!”

“The - what? No one can go to the Sands of Time anymore!” Hylochiel protested. “Not since Eden was sealed. And - anyway, Aziraphale was never a starmaker. How can he even _do_ time work?”

“It’s true that time work is very difficult for me, and I could never have done it on my old miracle budget, but we’ve discussed the theory many times. Crowley took Adam and me to the Sands during the Notocalypse, to give Adam time to collect himself when Satan came after him. There seemed no real reason why I shouldn’t be able to do it, too, _in extremis_. And Sandalphon on a smiting spree certainly counts as _in extremis_! Oh! We’ll have to go back, soon! I turned his flaming sword into a snake - we can’t leave the poor thing there!”

The Bentley pulled into its customary illegal space and stopped. Crowley, laughing, turned to Aziraphale and hurled himself against him. “Sure thing, angel, whenever you like! But how the hell did you get to Heaven from there?”

Aziraphale closed his arms around Crowley and exerted the firm, reassuring squeeze that calmed him best, explaining the situation briefly. “You beat _Sandalphon?_ ” Alaudiel squeaked.

“A lot of his reputation stems from his having authority, no concern for collateral damage, and no miracle budget,” Aziraphale explained. “Against someone who no longer accepts his authority or fears the fallout from his violence he loses a huge advantage. And he doesn’t use his power efficiently. I didn’t so much beat him, as outlast him. But he wouldn’t surrender or make terms, so I opened his heart, and - oh, Crowley! He doesn’t _have_ one! Gabriel ate it out of him, I think, millennia ago!” He drew a shuddering breath of comforting desert-spicy aura and the car’s warm leather smell, and explained how he’d gotten them to the infirmary. “And then, I presume, you felt me come back.”

“Yeah, and the phone rang. I figured Sandalphon was making a present of you to Gabriel and I knew a one-demon commando raid of Heaven wasn’t practical so I called Hylochiel, and she called Alaudiel, and we threw a plan together. Only they thought they could relegate me to getaway driver!”

“Well, it would have been sensible.”

“But we never thought of the infirmary! We were going to Earthly Affairs! If I hadn’t realized you weren’t _there_ \- we hadn’t tracked each other -“

“Never mind, never mind, it’s done. And Lady Forrester is in your flat, breakfastless and thinking who knows what? Let’s go. I could use a spot of tea myself. Would you girls care to come in and have a bite, or do you need to get back to your charges?”

“I’m not leaving y’all without some kind of back up until we’re sure things have settled down,” declared Alaudiel.

“Ah. As to that.” Aziraphale realized what he needed to do; and found he was angry enough to do it. “Crowley, do you have my mobile telephone?”

“Lady Forrester does.” Crowley led them across the street to the front door of the building. “Who do you need to call?”

“Uriel. I don’t know how to call her from an Earth telephone, but I suspect Alaudiel and Hylochiel do.”

“I’ve got her on speed-dial,” said Hylochiel, reaching into her handbag, but Aziraphale shook his head.

“It’s bad enough you may have been recognized with Crowley! I don’t want Uriel seeing either of your numbers and associating my voice to them. Just tell me how to get through.” 

“Tell _me,_ I’m better with the things,” said Crowley, pulling out his computer/phone/whatever else it was. Alaudiel talked him through the complex sequence of dialing, menu choosing, and dialing again, and when it started ringing he handed it off, as they got into the lift.

One ring. Two. “Earthly Affairs, Archangel Uriel speaking.”

“This is Aziraphale,” he said, talking straight over the gasp and rustle as she shoved her rolling chair back. “I want you to listen to me very carefully, and preferably record this, because I will _not_ be repeating myself. Ready?”

“Go ahead.” She sounded flat and defiant and terrified, like that mob boss who had one day come in to see for himself what the problem was with taking over the bookshop. _Good._

Crowley held Aziraphale’s free hand as the lift rose, smooth and steadily, and Aziraphale’s voice cranked its way up the Outraged Citizen Demanding Action scale, which was _not_ his comfort zone and was usually avoidable. “The only thing Crowley, and I, and the humans we associate with, ask of Heaven and Hell is that they not harass us. We have now endured, by my count, _forty-three_ attempts to invade our privacy; _one_ attempt to kidnap the child formerly called the Antichrist; and one extremely dangerous assault on my person which involved a flaming sword and wings _in the middle of London in broad daylight._ I don’t expect you to take my word for this, but have confidence that the Akashic Records will confirm the accusation. All of these attempts, by the way, have been perpetrated by representatives of _Heaven_. Hell, in contrast, has intruded on us only as necessary to negotiate a written non-aggression pact. When I think what this says about Heaven, I am extremely glad to have terminated my association with it! What I wish to make clear at this time is, that _no further such attempts will be tolerated_. Heaven has forced me to do many, many things I did not want to do in the past, I have _never_ shirked my duty, and I will not now hesitate to do what I must to protect my husband and the humans who rely on us. _Do I make myself clear?”_

On the other end of the line, Uriel swallowed. The lift doors opened onto the penthouse floor as she said, in the smallest voice he had ever heard her use: “You do. I had no idea what Sandalphon was doing. I still don’t. Raphael’s in with Gabriel right now. She seems angry.”

Aziraphale dialed down to _waspish austerity_. “I rejoice to hear it. I suggest that, when she leaves, you ask permission to follow her back to the infirmary and visit Sandalphon. If she permits it, you’ll get a good look at how Gabriel rewards personal loyalty. I understand he’s under investigation for his abusive management style; is that true?” Crowley opened the door to the flat, letting Alaudiel and Hylochiel precede him, continuing to hold it for Aziraphale, who cupped his hand over the screen hoping he was blocking a mouthpiece and said: “I’ll be right in, dearest, you go ahead and see to Lady Forrester.”

“The, the department is under investigation, yes.” Uriel struggled to get her professional voice back.   
  
Aziraphale shifted his tone all the way down to _amiable customer service_. Or, as Crowley liked to call it, _tempting voice_. “Excellent. I don’t suppose I need remind you that, should Gabriel take the, shall we say, Fall for the way the Guardian Service has been mishandled, you are his obvious successor.” Crowley grinned and went in, closing the door softly, leaving Aziraphale pacing off his nervous energy in the small dark hall, wishing he had a telephone cord to twist.

“That, um, I suppose that’s true,” said Uriel. “But you don’t like me, either.”

“I don’t have to like anybody! All I am entitled to require of Heaven is that it cease this, this _vendetta_. I presume that Gabriel has been the driving force behind it. I would love to stand down, if his successor discontinues the policy of persecution, but I want it fully understood that my husband and I are _done_ being patient.”

The matter-of-fact threat settled into silence between them. “You seem confident that Gabriel will, um, will not be Director of Earthly Affairs much longer.”

“Yes, well, I’ve had an up close and personal view of his guilt. As, I presume, have you.” He let the last of the anger sigh out of his voice. “You aren’t guiltless yourself, but - neither is Sandalphon, and if you visit him you’ll see - he’s more of a victim than any of us. I don’t know what Gabriel’s done to you, Uriel, but you _are_ still your own angel, not his creature. You can go forward and do better and make Earthly Affairs into a true power for good, if you choose to. I hope you do. But whether you choose that or not, I hope it will be a very, very long time before we cross paths again.”

“I hope so too,” said Uriel. “What _are_ you?”

“I am a very tired principality who desperately needs a cup of tea and a long cuddle with his husband,” said Aziraphale. “Good-bye, Uriel. Mind how you go.” He tapped the button he hoped hung up on her, but the device’s face remained lit, so he hit the power button to turn it off completely. For a moment he slumped, letting the adrenaline crash wash through him. By Earth time he had left the flat less than an hour before; but his body had contended with Sandalphon for what it insisted was a full day, before it had to cope with all the rest of this. Tea was the least of its demands. 

The wards on the flat embraced him with their promise of safety as he entered, finding everyone assembled in the kitchen, where Hylochiel had put the kettle on, Alaudiel was looking in the refrigerator telling Crowley that hardly any of this was food, and Mrs. Forrester leaped up from a bar stool and pointed her stick at Aziraphale. “Wings!” She declared. “And a flaming sword! I _saw_ it!“

“Yes, dear madam, you did,” said Aziraphale, taking her hand between both his own. “And so did many other people on the street at the time, though they are all now busily finding other explanations for it.”

“Anthony hasn’t aged a day since I moved in twenty years ago!”

“He has not. But if you try to tell anyone outside this room about it, they’ll say you’ve succumbed to senile dementia and your children will finally put you into that care home.”

“They _would!”_ She grumbled. “But I’m _not_ gaga!”

“You are not.” He kissed her hand. “And will not be if Crowley and I have any say in it, which you may as well know, we do.”

“Humph,” she said. “And me with no breakfast!”

“That is easily remedied.”

“Do y’all own a crepe pan?” Alaudiel asked, pulling eggs and milk out of the refrigerator.

Crowley swung open the relevant cupboard door. “First bit of specialized overpriced cooking equipment I ever bought. Knock yourself out. Sit, angel, you look exhausted.”

“I am.” Aziraphale sat, and Crowley came to lean across his lap and kiss him. “But I don’t think - those people - will be troubling us again. So I am very happy.”

“Mm. So’m I.” 

The kettle sang. Lady Forrester took over the teapot, complaining that young people today had no idea how to bitch a pot, and Hylochiel patiently underwent her tuition. Alaudiel bustled around the sleek modern kitchen with its hanging plants and apple-themed accessories. Crowley leaned against him, and Aziraphale knew, as certainly as if he’d ever done it, that if he opened _this_ heart, he would find a fullness there such as few could contain. “My dear wily serpent,” he murmured, lips almost brushing the twisting mark beside Crowley’s ear. “How did you sense me among all those other angels, in snake form, with the ring subsumed?”

Crowley scoffed. “Didn’t need a ring to find you in Paris, did I? Or in the Blitz?”

“Many fewer angels around to confuse the trail, there.”

“I don’t care if you were hidden under the throne of God, I’d see that radiance leaking out, brighter than anything around it,” said Crowley. “Nobody else shines like my angel!”

“Nobody except my demon,” said Aziraphale.

“Nobody wants to watch your foreplay, Anthony!” Lady Forrester informed them. “Take it into the lounge and we’ll call you when breakfast is ready! Honestly, I don’t know what this world is coming to!”

-30-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stories don't end; but at some point, a teller stops telling them, and this is as far as I go. I think. I didn't know I was going to write any of this.
> 
> Headcanons that never made it into the series:
> 
> The current incarnation of Aziraphale's boat is named "The Brain of Pooh," after the umbrella in which Christopher Robin and Pooh rescued Piglet when he was Completely Surrounded by Water. Crowley thinks that "The Floating Bear," after the empty honey pot in which Pooh rescued himself, is a better name, but Aziraphale thinks it conveys a false impression. I don't know if bears are a thing in gay culture in Britain, but if anybody knows about them regardless, it's Aziraphale.
> 
> Heaven and Hell have been dithering over assigning a new Guardian and Tempter in England. Eventually they will do so, but their headquarters will not be in London, and the prime requisite for the job is that they can conduct their affairs without annoying our protagonists, who not only rebuild and expand their system and divide their time between the flat, the bookshop, and the cottage, but occasionally travel abroad in "The Brain of Pooh" or the Bentley. Aziraphale gets to know his fellow-guardians, and is a popular speaker at informal seminars organized by the Guardian and Tempter's Union, Hylochiel of Lithuania, President. Crowley, alas, still can't go to Ireland.
> 
> The Heaven where humans go is separate from the part occupied by Earthly Affairs. It takes awhile, but Aziraphale manages to get Oscar's message to Constance and Robbie.
> 
> Hasture lurks a lot, after his little chat with Aziraphale, he will not be returning to Great Britain any time soon.
> 
> Aziraphale learns to listen to and enjoy modern music, but still refers to The Velvet Underground as bebop because it makes Crowley hiss and roll his eyebrows adorably. The night Crowley talks Aziraphale into karoake, they kill with a duet of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." 
> 
> In private, Aziraphale's wings are modeled on a blue macaw's, so Crowley can enjoy them. The Pride wings are for making a statement.
> 
> After she graduates, Izzy moves into the flat above the bookshop. She never quite understands what the deal is with Mr. Fell, but she has him on speed dial, and can deal with a lot of contingencies without disturbing him. Because, in the end, isn't it all about encouraging the humans to take care of each other?


End file.
